The Social Media Story of @AmericanAir Flight 205 – #Gate48ARiot

The Social Media Story of @AmericanAir Flight 205 – #Gate48ARiot June 21, 2016

It started out promising enough — a week in Maui with a great organization. David and I both are presenting on a panel at 8:30 AM Tuesday morning, so we flew in on Monday.

Or so we thought. As soon as we landed in LAX, we noticed the flight was delayed. We grabbed a bite to eat and began charging our phones, laptops, and iPads.

But the delays kept coming. Our incoming flight was an hour late. Then, a mechanical issue was discovered. That meant they had to fly in a part, then work on it. But in the process of fixing it, they found more issues.

They got another plane; it was too small. By the time they got an aircraft that would accommodate everyone, the flight attendants had “timed out.” And they didn’t tell the new set of attendants to come in, but they require a two hour heads up. The pilot had to drive in from San Diego — 120 mile road trip.

During this entire time, they never said, “We have significant delays – come back in,  say, 12 hours.” Instead, they would adjust the departure time in thirty minute increments on the board… families on vacation with little ones could never leave the gate; passengers couldn’t ever go get real food, and no American Airlines employee explained what was going on.

Like, ever.  I’ll let the social media posts tell the rest of the story:

By the way, that 11:45 was just a joke. #WeWillNeverLeaveLAX #gate48aRiot

A photo posted by Nancy French (@nancyjanefrench) on


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