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A passenger said American Airlines has rebooked his family’s return tickets from another country.
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Sam Taussig had planned to fly home from St. Vincent, but was put on a flight from St. Lucia.
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He eventually found a flight from Barbados and hired a private plane to get there from St. Vincent.
An American Airlines passenger said the airline has changed his family’s flights back to the US to depart from a completely different country in the Caribbean.
Denver7 first announced the news.
Sam Taussig told the broadcaster that he was checking seat assignments in the airline’s app on July 4 when he realized the flight had changed from what he had booked in January.
“I noticed we were flying from another country,” Taussig said.
“We flew from St. Lucia instead of St. Vincent, and I thought that was very strange. It must have been a mistake. The customer service representative said, ‘Yes, I’m sorry sir. You’re in an overbooked situation. , and we’ve moved your flight from St. Vincent to St. Lucia,” which is about 100 miles as the crow flies and five islands to the north. And I said, “Well, that’s insane. We need to change this back. This is not acceptable’.”
Taussig eventually rebooked the return flight from Barbados and hired a private plane to take his family there from St. Vincent, he told Denver7. He said he had filed a 19-page complaint with the airline.
“They’re going to charge us exorbitant change fees and re-ticketing fees and split the reservation fee totaling nearly $30,000 to get us home a week later,” Taussig told the broadcaster.
American Airlines did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment, but a representative told Denver7 that it informed Taussig of the changes in April. If flights are overbooked, customers can request a full refund or change their itinerary, the spokesperson added.
The airline industry has had a rough few months as demand for travel bounced back after the pandemic, but coupled with staffing issues that have sparked a spate of flight cancellations, layovers and chaotic scenes at airports.
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