Here is an open letter to American Airlines about multiple system failures we found on a recent trip. I hope this letter is helpful, fun and… actionable! Please let’s work together to make flying better in the 21st century. I still have a lot of the world left to see!!!
Dear Mr. Isom,
Hello, I am Su Wang Entriken and I go out of my way to fly with American, often at extra expense, and I hope you can please go out of your way to address an ongoing issue with American, specifically related to international flights with international customers.
Why are there redactions in an open letter? Well I’m also sending them those extra details in a private letter.
My account number is REDACTED, I have been flying with American for 10+ years and am currently at Platinum Pro status. I have been married for almost ten years, my birth name is Su Wang and I am Chinese, living in Philadelphia. Living here permanently, with my husband, we have two daughters (also just took their first flight at 4 and 1 years old, an American code share!) After my latest trip I now fear flying international with your company in the future. Please allow me to share this story with you along with advice to correct this preventable issue. Although this is a simple fix, it requires attention from you, at your level in the company, and I hope this letter is welcome.
This story regards my booking (REDACTED ITINERARY CODES), originally scheduled to fly PHL > MIA > EZE flying AA 900 and AA 2987 departing Friday 2023-07-14 with my husband William Entriken (REDACTED ACCOUNT CODE). American had rescheduled my flight to the following day Saturday 2023-07-15 and this story begins at the ticketing counter in PHL that Saturday.
My husband and I entered the priority ticketing lane and spoke with the attendant there to check in for our flight. He inspected our documents including for the domestic segment departing PHL and also for the international segment (including my Argentina visa, and return flight) for entering Argentina. My flight was ticketed with PNR in my name Su Wang Entriken, as always.
I had all the correct and proper documents. This includes my passport and my Argentina visa. My birth name is Su Wang. And on page 2 of my passport it shows my “also known as” name of Su Wang Entriken, which is my married name. My Su Wang Entriken name is legally recognized in the United States (i.e. it is on my Pennsylvania driver’s license, USA permanent resident card “green card”, and is how I file taxes to the IRS). My Su Wang Entriken name is also recognized in China, as signified by the “also known as” name endorsement on my passport, shown below.
Photo page (first page of passport)
Observations page (second page of passport)
In China (and much of the East) it is not customary for a woman to change her name after marriage. Authorities in China and other places understand this custom in the West, and do have the official process of adding the “also known as”.
The observation photographed above reads:
The name of the bearer of this passport is also spelled/written as ENTRIKEN, SU WANG.
You are probably reading this letter in an office. On plain reading of this sentence, I expect that you can probably understand that China recognizes SU WANG ENTRIKEN as one of my names. I have also flown in and out of the US dozens of times since my marriage under this name (often on American) and every time customs agents have acknowledged this name. However I understand that your staff on the ground are maybe in a more stressful environment than you right now and can have difficulty reading and interpreting one new sentence written on an official document. (A note on tone: this is written with sympathy and not sarcasm.)
After I showed him all the required documentation including the observation page, the agent, Dennis, identified my documentation as a problem and said “the system can’t take it”. It is apparent that Dennis was not trained on married women/name changes. He proceeded to call the “AA help desk”. Dennis waited on hold for 20 minutes to connect this call. Another staff agent on site, a woman, after thoughtful review on her own, identified that I had ticketed everything properly and she recommended the ticketing proceed as-is. After consultation between Dennis, this other staff member, and the “AA help desk”, the general consensus was that probably nobody will get in trouble if I am allowed to board the flight. This took us all another 15 minutes and he printed our tickets.
During our PHL > MIA segment, midair, the AA app notified me that there will be a problem connecting onward so my husband and I used the app and clicked the orange suggestion to change to a different MIA > EZE segment. However, we could not get boarding passes using the app. Please do not be distracted by this specific deficiency. I have tabulated this and other preventable issues into an appendix. Frankly, that page can be sent to and handled by somebody at a lower level than you. The focus of this letter is the larger issue that makes me and people like me afraid to fly American, please read on.
After landing at MIA, we ran to the new flight’s gate. And the attendant there informed us that we must verify our travel documents for this international flight. When reviewing my passport, observation page, and green card, she explained that the system “will not accept” this and she “cannot let [me] board” with this ticket and needed to call a manager. Our conversation was friendly and I explained how Dennis already cleared our travel documents. This attendant did not rely on Dennis’s assessment because “he was only concerned about checking us in at PHL for a domestic flight” and she explained that American will be fined if I am allowed to land with this ticket for “Su Wang Entriken”. We began this discussion before the flight started boarding. Ultimately, they held the flight from leaving so William and I could be the last to board, and they made a quick fix before boarding us. This required the attention of me, my husband, and four American staff for 30 minutes each. American staff proposed these possible solutions at various times:
Guess which one of these was the biggest affront and caused my husband to invest so much time helping with this letter.
- Book separate tickets outbound (Su Wang) and inbound (Su Wang Entriken) for all my international flights going forward using different names.
- Perform alternating name changes before I board each leg of my flights.
- Change to a US passport (i.e. give up my Chinese citizenship).
- Change my name on my Chinese passport (i.e. convince President Xi Jinping to change the country’s policy on how citizens are named).
- Give up my legal married name.
Upon entering the United States, it is necessary for me, and people like me with permanent residency and a married name, to have a ticket issued with PNR in my legal name which is Su Wang Entriken. I’m not sure if this is the official policy, but at least it was my experience.
The quick fix was that they changed the name on my ticket from Su Wang Entriken to Su Wang without confirming with me. The attendant and the “AA help desk” explained (I overheard) that later it will be necessary for me to call again to change the name back before my return flight otherwise I cannot return to the USA. Of course, the correct action is that my ticket should be, and originally was, made in the name of “Su Wang Entriken” and American staff should recognize this swiftly without assistance, or at a minimum after I point out the “also known as” page in my passport.
The end result for this trip is my husband and I made it to Argentina safely. And then I required several more hours to fix this situation with American so that I could
