American Airlines: Tell its pilots your travel horror stories

American Airlines customers: Are you angry at the company? Well, AA pilots want to hear from you.

Following a week that saw the carrier cancel more than 3,000 flights, leaving tens of thousands of passengers stranded, a group of AA pilots has just launched a Web site -- Tell Your AA Story -- where they want you to air your frustrations about the airline's recent and future performance. The site has already generated more than 56,000 hits.

Check out this welcome message, taken directly from the site (the caps are not mine):

Had your travel plans destroyed by the actions of AA lately? Even if they're not listening--we are. Whether you were traveling on business, for pleasure, or for an emergency, we realize that the mismanagement of American Airlines has cost you dearly. It doesn't matter if you lost a day at Disney with your family, a day of work for your business, or a major family event, the unfortunate truth is that your life has been disrupted, your plans destroyed, your business derailed--all for one bad reason: THE PROFIT OF A FEW AMR EXECUTIVES.

AA's 12,000 pilots are in the middle of contract negotiations, so the site's launch seems as much a collective bargaining move as a response to last week's cancellations, even as the Allied Pilots Association, the pilots' union, says it is neither.

If you're flying out of Boston, New York, Miami, San Francisco and a handful of other cities today, you are likely to encounter a few dozen AA pilots outside protesting the company's recent performance. At key hubs, 30-50 AA pilots will be passing out literature promoting their new Web site between 11 a.m. and 2:30 p.m.

This just as American says it is back up and running at a full schedule (the pilots say their actions will not translate into flight delays). AA clearly has more than just frustrated customers to be concerned about. I'm reminded of Grant's post earlier this month about an AA flight attendant who used an awards ceremony as a forum to take AA management to the woodshed over a whole host of consumer and safety issues.

Filed under: Airlines, Consumer Activism