Last Tuesday, March 7, my wife and I were scheduled to leave Sint Maarten on American Airlines (AA) flight 724 at 5:02 PM. We were to connect in Miami for our flight to Boston (AA1054). We had used our AA miles to reserve business class seats.

On Tuesday, our AA flight was delayed, then delayed further, then cancelled because of a maintenance issue. After spending 5.5 hours in Juliana Airport, we were given vouchers for taxis, a dinner, and a room at the Sonesta Maho Beach Resort. We were directed to a bus, transfered to the arrival area, required to pass through passport control again, pick up our luggage, and get a taxi. After arrival at the Sonesta, we, and all the other passengers from the flight assigned to that hotel, were told to take a seat and wait for the manager to update the system. We tried several times, as did others, to check in, but was told we had to wait. We had to wait over one hour, others over 1.5 hours, to check in. The Maho staff were brusque and unhelpful that evening. I tried to call AA Tuesday night to check on other flights for Wednesday, but no one answered the local AA phone. I could find no international number to call the AA Executive Platinum desk.

The AA app and AA emails later reported that our flight would leave at 7:00 AM on Wednesday, March 8, then the time was changed to 9:00 AM. We checked out of the hotel, then stopped when we met people returning from the airport saying that AA had changed the departure time to 12:00 noon. I called the local AA representative again, connected, and was told that if we wanted to change our itinerary the only available flights would be on Sunday. We went to the airport. AA delayed our flight again, and again, and again, and after waiting 9.5 hours, the flight took off ~ 7:30 PM. In the meantime AA let two other flights to Miami depart on Wednesday - but did not make those seats available to all the passengers from March 7. We missed our connection to Boston again, and had to stay overnight in the Miami International Airport Hotel. We were given economy class seats for our flight to Boston on Thursday, March 9.

We did make it home. And I understand that airplane problems can, and do, occur. But, the lack of AA customer service during those two days was very frustrating for us and the other passengers. It is perhaps time for us to accumulate miles on another airline.