American Airlines Fires Worker For Responding to Customer Complaint

Fired for helping someone and actually providing GOOD customer service for a change! Sad, just sad.

Come on AA, prove your piece of krap reputation wrong and rehire the fella!

I agree, it is indeed a sad day when a company fires an employee for trying to do the right thing. I used to have a high opinion of AA but this shows me that there is no reason to continue to do so. It's recent actions have clearly indicated that customer service and satisfaction are no longer high on its list of priorities. It also shows that it no longer prizes loyalty from its employees and contractors. Perhaps the lesson to be learned here is that if you are an AA employee or contractor and see or hear wha you consider to be an unfair or unjustified negative comment about the company just hold your tongue and let the negative impression stand rather than try to defend the company and have its subsequent actions prove that the negative commentator was probably right.

It is the culture of all large organizations lately to have NDA's coupled with some form of zero tolerance. There by no mater what caused something to happen the narrow minded and lacking in common sense can continue to drive our corporations into the ground. Conform or be eliminated, we do not care what your motivations are. (This spreads to the labor unions also) Many good ideas are scrapped because they fail to muster up to some narrow rule that has no right being the final position. You can have an idea or do something that can save the comapny money and expand its base. Be that business base or good customer relations.
Those who run our major corporations of late seem to have no common sense, and god forbid they have to actually look into something beyond the surface. This man did the right thing but someone viewed it as a violation of the NDA he signed. When he did not disclose any sensitive information, nor did he go against the comapny in an attempt to bring to light improvements in work and attempting to improve the comapanies image.
I own a business so I can speak from experience. While not all employee actions are right, or benificial to the company, there are those few times where it is, and we do not have a hard fast rule system. We have a general rule structure, and look at each possible violation on a case by case basis so that good employees, or even bad ones, who are motivated to help the company even if in a minor violation do not ge railroaded out the door. AA should reconsider and rehire, and slap those who fired him.

AA has been my family preferred carrier of all times, not even 911 deterred us from using it, we always felt comfortable traveling with them to all parts of the world, the thought of using any other airline never crossed our mind, it's called loyalty (something I now realize AA lacks) and so this employee who's only wrong-doing was that of potraying a positive image about the company he works for, turns around and GETS FIRED (there is something mighty wrong with this picture). Well as they say 'all good things come to an end', thank you AA for all those years I was blind about you, but I don't think my family and I would use your services anymore...........in fact I know we won't. GOOD LUCK TO YOU MR. X

I am a nobody but breeding corporate behavior like this is wrong, I can only vote with my dollar, no more flying with AA. You no longer have my money to continue your corporate ways.....don't worry AA, there are many customers out there who don't care and will keep purchasing tickets from you. Thats sad.

I had the misfortune of flying American Airlines to Texas. It was the worst flying experience of my life. All 4 flights (not direct -- had 1 stopover) were overbooked. The lies at the counters were unbelievably long, The ancient DC-9 seats were incredibly uncomfortable. There was little space between rows. Every person I dealt for each of the 4 flights except one, was surly and difficult. The plane was not clean. It will be a long, long time before I fly American again.

THIS REALLY IS A CRUMMY SCENARIO. I THINK THAT PEOPLE WHO CARE AS MUCH AS MR. X. APPARENTLY DID TYPICALLY GO ON TO GREENER PASTURES. SOMETIMES THEY CONTINUE TO WORK IN THANKLESS POSITIONS UNTIL THEY ARE PUSHED TO MAKE OTHER CHOICES. LOOKING BACK, I THINK THAT MR. X. WILL WILL ONE DAY BE SO HAPPY THAT HE IS AWAY FROM SUCH AND UNGRATEFUL EMPLOYER. HE SHOULD HAVE RECEIVED A "BONUS" FOR HIS DEDICATION TO THE COMPANY IMAGE INSTEAD OF A PINK SLIP!

Blaming the "internal culture" of the company hardly sounds like some spirited defense of the company.

Sounds more like his motivation for even responding was to defend himself and shift the blame to the company.

Great job AA. Fire one of your better employees for some stupid reason. Never fly AA again.

sounds like we are only hearing one side of this, in all my years of customer service seldom if ever does it go the exact way either side repeats it, if this in fact was true seems to me he would have at least a hearing with the labor board.

That is exactly why I refuse to fly American Airlines.

AA stop jacking with Mr. X he's just helping the company. Give him his job back and tell him you made a mistake. Some times it good to over look rule and use common sense.

hank

Good bye American Airlines... It is only a matter of time before you close your doors. It happens to the best of them, remember "Eastern Airlines"...

I would think the suit who wrote the policy should be the one getting canned. Not Mr X for attempting to better his companies customer service. You have to wonder, when we read crap like this, what are we not hearing about?

This is a death sentence for AA,

I'll be taking my business to some other terminal and gate.

These companies think that they can just ruin peoples' lives. Sometimes they can't. The management of AA fired the web designer mid web rebuild. Talk about cutting off their nose to spite their face. That's got to hurt when the thing doesn't work right and folks like me use the web to do our ticketing. Oh well, stupid is as stupid does. But the main reason for this blog is that in Oregon, these rotten managers got to firing folks for, well, basically not being in the company boot camp and allowing poor managers to yell at them and belittle them. The state unemployment insurance department reviewed the firings and determined that the state was not allowing the firing of the employees because of 'personality clashes' where the state's unemployment insurance coffers would be drained. Therefore the state sued the companies for wrongful discharge and won and the employees were reinstated. Maybe . . .

Sadly, the poor customer service from AA has slid to include poor employee treatment. I no longer fly AA. I just booked a flight with a different airline for my travels during this Thanksgiving week. (there are 13 in my family traveling this week, and we ALL choose to ban AA)

Budget cuts make anxious decision makers create situations. Give him back his job!!

RE Hire Mr. X or lose me as a frequent flier on AA airlines. Stupidity (firing the guy for doing good work) does not deserve any rewards. I'll anticipate a response from AA management that they've re-hired Mr. X.