*Airline snarls remain

Just because the airports have reopened doesn't mean things are back to normal. Airlines continue to cancel flights today, not because of storm damage but because of logistics. Planes had been moved out of the area in advance of Hurricane Irene, and getting them back into position is proving to be a hassle (as is getting crews to the airports). Looks like many of the early afternoon flights from LAX to NY are delayed. From the NYT:

Many flights were already fully booked in the week leading up to the Labor Day weekend, a period of heavy travel. So passengers who are trying to get alternate flights are trying to rebook in a packed system.

So which airline is doing the worst job in handling customer calls? StellaService, a company that rates customer service quality, found that passengers on American Airlines fared the worst on Friday, right before the storm hit land. From Main St:

The airline had the longest wait time on its customer service line, keeping passengers on hold for an average of 1 hour 32 minutes and 39 seconds. That was almost an hour longer than the next worst airline, Delta (Stock Quote: DAL), which had an average wait time of 33 minutes and 43 seconds. American also wasn't responding to Twitter messages, which is an area where Delta actually excelled. The airline answered 100% of customer tweets in an average of 14 minutes.

*Update: American Airlines responds:

"We disagree with the findings of the study. We believe it is highly inaccurate and based on an insufficient sample size - eight calls and 12 tweets on average - that that skewed results and does not represent reality. We handled more than 100,000 calls on Friday, and during the period in question our customers waited an average of 21 minutes - far less than alleged and in line with most of our peers.