Yes, we’re talking about the airline industry. Again. I’ll let the emails do the talking:

August 6, 2016

Dear William:

As hard as we try to ensure that our flights operate on schedule, there are occasions when that just doesn’t happen — like your recent flight with us. We are truly sorry for disrupting your trip.

We hope you will accept the 7000 bonus miles that have been deposited into your AAdvantage® account as our way of making amends. You will see the mileage in your account soon at http://www.aa.com/aadvantage.

We’ll look forward to providing you with a better travel experience very soon. Thanks for flying with us.

Sincerely,

K. J. Russell
Customer Relations
American Airlines

August 6, 2016

Mr. Russell,

I appreciate the miles, but their actual value (about $135 I believe) hardly comes close to compensating me for the delay of 8 hours and overall inconvenience and unpleasantness of getting home at nearly 2 in the morning.

I’d be more impressed if:

— AA employees had actually kept us informed about what the problem was causing the delay. Even your email here doesn’t provide a clue.

— AA made it easier to get rebooked. I stood in line for nearly an hour and a half at the gate to simply get rebooked on the new flight. While in line, I tried to rebook by calling the AA Advantage phone number, but they couldn’t do it because “the airport is in charge of that” (huh?). I tried doing it on my AA app, again no luck. I might have used the 90 minutes to get some work done on my laptop, but doing so while standing in line doesn’t really work. I finally resorted to pulling up the current novel I’m reading. The guy in front of me was trying to calm his evident frustration by playing games on his smartphone.

Saying you’re “truly sorry” for all of this hassle–at least some of which was quite avoidable –and proffering 135 bucks worth of miles as a palliative, is actually pretty insulting.

Regards,
Bill Lee
AA Advantage #*******