By this time, I was becoming rather concerned about the possibility of missing our connection (AA 1099) in Miami and asked Ryan whether he thought this could be repaired or would we and our luggage be deplaned. His answer was, "There is another generator they can use, on the tail, but it requires fuel to run it. If they want to use it, they're going to need to add fuel before we can take off". Oh, to be a smug "I know everything" almost 17 year old! But sure enough, after about a 10 minute delay at the gate, the Cockpit announcement was to the effect that we would be able to proceed using this aircraft with a change of paperwork and the addition of 3,500 lbs of jet fuel. I hardly wanted to look at Ryan's "told ya so" expression, but in fact he was absolutely right.
By the time we took off, I would guess we were almost 2 hours behind schedule, more or less.
Lift-off this time was without incident and the flight proceeded normally to Miami. When we were about 2 hours into the flight, an announcement was made indicating that American had arranged for connecting passengers to be protected on later flights. For passengers connecting to San Juan, as we were, we were informed that arrangements had been made for us to be on the 3:38 p.m. flight and the gate number was provided. We were also advised that someone from American Airlines would meet the flight to provide additional direction.
Our seats were almost at the very rear of the aircraft and by the time we deplaned at Miami, there were no AA personnel anywhere to be found. We ran with our hand luggage to the nearest Departures board to see if there was indeed a 3:38 p.m. flight and that the gate information we had been provided in the announcement was correct. It was, so we headed off in that direction since we were about 1 hour until take-off of this flight.
Arriving at the gate for AA 2279, along with several other cruise passengers (cruising with various cruise lines, predominantly Princess), we were informed by the gate agent that he had heard nothing about our situation, had no record of our names, and that flight AA 2279 was oversold. Various among us (myself included) pointed out that our missed connection was due to technical problems and a rejected take-off in Toronto and that AA personnel onboard our aircraft had absolutely confirmed that we would fly on AA 2279. He didn't even look up or make eye contact during any of this time. Eventually 2 of us insisted that a supervisor be called. I did hear him page a supervisor, but no supervisor ever showed up.
When it became clear that this gentleman was not going to look at us or necessarily listen to us, I decided it was time to call Carnival. I remembered seeing a toll-free number in their booklet. Indeed, there was reference to calling this number "if you encounter the unexpected" so that their customer service people could assist.
I called the Carnival toll free number using a payphone about 30' from the gate agent's desk. The Carnival representative who came on the line listened to my story of where we were and how we had got there, asked for my booking number which I gave, and then asked me to confirm that I was physically in Miami airport at the gate of a flight soon to depart for San Juan. I confirmed all of this, whereupon this customer service representative said, "Ms. Holliday, frankly if you are at the gate then you are already better positioned than I am to deal with this. You're there and I'm not. I suggest that you go back to the gate agent and absolutely insist that you be issued a boarding pass for this flight".
With some surprise, I said, "Then what you are telling me, is there is nothing you can do to help and I'm on my own?" "I'm afraid that is just about the case", came the response. Another passenger from the Toronto flight who was also looking for assistance with this connection got pretty much the same response from Princess, or so I gather. There were also some RCI passengers from our flight trying to organize a new connection to San Juan but eventually I lost track of them and don’t know how much assistance RCI provided to them.
After speaking with Carnival and being told they couldn’t help, I decided not to waste time on the phone. By now, the boarding of flight AA 2279 was well underway and we didn’t have boarding passes for it. Back to the gate agent I went and reiterated that we needed to be onboard this aircraft in order to connect with our ship. Again, the agent did not even look at me, but eventually just indicated to all of the cruise passengers who were waiting at his desk, "the aircraft is filled, I can issue no more boarding passes. There is another flight leaving for San Juan at 5:04 p.m. and I suggest you try to get on that." We watched as the door to the jetway closed and realized there was nothing further we could do at this gate.
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