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I fly a lot. About 50% of the time I am traveling to one corner of the country or another. Everyone has their airline of choice and my choice had been American Airlines. I have flown United, Delta, and on rare occasion Southwest Airlines, but I have had the best overall experience on American. And since becoming a AAdvantage Gold member, my experience has only improved. 

Covid-19 has taken a toll on the entire world, and the airline industry is no exception. American Airlines has tried to turn their negatives into positives, but I believe they failed. I received this email from them on March 25, 2020.

The first area that they addressed in their email was seating. 

We’ve relaxed our seating policy to enable customers to practice social distancing on board whenever possible.*

American states that they will leave middle seats empty in an effort to provide social distancing. But, and this is a big but, they plainly state that this policy will be enforced when possible. I am pretty sure that if seats are sold that their social distancing policy will mysteriously fail to be implemented. 

Their second area is food and beverage service. 

For the safety of our customers and flight attendants, we’re temporarily suspending food and beverage service on flights under 2,200 miles

In addition to the social distance seating strategy on flights of up to 4.5 hours, you will not have the option to be served food or beverage. I don’t know about you, but a 4+ hour flight with no beverage or food? That is a huge ask for a four hour flight. 

Third and finally their pet policy is suspect at best. 

Because schedule changes increase the risk of leaving a pet stranded, all checked pet service will be suspended beginning March 25. Carry-on pets and emotional service animals are still allowed.

Basically they are telling customers don’t check your pet because it might get lost. 

So let me recap this for you. You can have seating with social distancing, unless you can’t, you won’t receive food or beverage service, and if you bring your pet it might get lost. On top of all of that you are paying the same price for your flight now that you paid when you were getting all of those things before. 

Remember that saying you get what you pay for?  In this situation you get less.