I found this on the web. I thought I would share it.

Very bad timing for me to answer this question. I was leading a tour group of 33 senior citizens to California in August and they cancelled our flight out of JFK, apparently one of three that morning. These people, in their 70s and 80s, got to the airport at 6AM and checked in for an 8AM flight. We found out at 9AM that the flight was cancelled. After two hours of scrambling around, reticketing everyone and finding their luggage (another story!), we were transferred as a group to a flight at 8 that night! Gave us two "generous" meal vouchers and spent a delightful day at the American Airlines terminal. We were not called for that flight until 9:15PM, finally got on the plane to be told that there were weather problems in the Midwest and we couldn't be cleared for take-off, and finally did take off at 11 at night!! By the time we got to our hotel in San Francisco, it was about 6 in the morning the next day New York time!! For a six hour flight!! I could have gone to China!! American Airlines?! For now you can keep them! Oh, and to add insult to injury, they managed to lose three pieces of luggage in the transfer!! And for good measure, one on the return flight too! Took that lady one week to get it!

Based on the recent expriences of 2 friends (one flying internationally and another on a domestic flight) the customer service was either nonexistent or halfhearted with American Airlines. I have only flown American once in the last few years, and their delays caused me to miss a connection - and I got a whopping $6.00 food voucher - enough to buy a bottled water! The American Airlines hub at DFW is a zoo - it's impossible to tell how to get where you need to and personnel are surly. I can put up with about anything if the people are at least gracious and understanding of the problems they've caused the travellers, but on American they aren't.

It has been many years since I've flown on American, but my experience back then was fine. Today I seem to wind up on Southwest most of the time.

Oh lord! They have screwed me so often by cancelling flights, delaying flights etc etc but seeing as they have a virtual monopoly on the routes I use most often there is nothing I can do....but if EVER there comes an alternative....

I've had good and bad experiences with mostly good experiences for international flights but less than spectacular on domestic flights. I can't pinpoint one exact flaw as there seems to be a few of them and not always at the same time or frequency.

American Airlines, while one of the top transporters in terms of people carried, is one of the most poorly managed. Their flight frequency and incompetent hub management is the biggest contributing factor. Allow me to explain: one of AA's secondary hubs is based in KJFK, quite possibly the busiest and most poorly managed airport in the history of air travel. AA and its regional American Eagle squeeze off so many departures from JFK and other hub airports like KDFW, KORD, that you are literally lost in a sea of AA tails on the taxiway. If an AA aircraft needs maintenance, you better hope you didn't need to be anywhere within the next ten to thirty hours because the plane your waiting on was probably due to make 6 flights before yours. This combined with the fact that their hubs have too many flights attempting to depart that every flight is going to be late to the next hub, where it will be further delayed again when it tries to take off. It becomes a big cycle of delays, til they ultimately have to cancel flights to get back on track. You may be thinking yes a lot of major airlines do this and I agree. AA's poor management of how to make this work combined with literally unregulated hubs makes for a very unreliable airline. I cannot even count the number of times I have landed my jet in KJFK or KORD only to sit in traffic for 2, 3, even 4 hours behind what seems like hundreds of AA tails, mostly from the regional American Eagle.

They fired my mother-in-law's husband for some b.s. accusation of lies from a digruntled, bitter, baggage handler. They can crash and burn for all I care.

They do not pay their prop-plane pilots enough money. These are the airplanes that do not have jet engines. The average starting salary is $25,000 a year. I can dig a ditch and make that salary and i do not have the responsibility that the pilots have.

i know they are the largest u.s. carrier,perhaps the second largest in the world. today too many airlines are guilty of inefficiencies.