A month ago I wrote that American Airlines would be introducing a new coffee partnership.
This is something they desperately need, both because their current coffee is quite bad and because coffee is symbolically important as a marker of change. It was the first move United Airlines made (alongside stroopwafels in economy) when Oscar Munoz took over as CEO and signaled the end of the product-destroying Jeff Smisek era.
Starting next year, American Airlines will offer Lavazza coffee onboard and in lounges.
Beginning in early 2026, American Airlines travelers will be able to enjoy Lavazza’s premium coffee blends across all cabins in flight and at American’s Flagship® and Admirals Club® lounges across the system. This exclusive rollout marks a significant step in American’s continued evolution of the premium travel experience.
Coffee remains tough to do at altitude. And the water used matters, too. We’ll have to see what the specific brews American is using work out to taste like in practice. But shifting away from Fresh Brew onboard is a great move.
United serves Illy (the best amongst U.S. airlines so far). Delta offers Starbucks. Even Southwest Airlines announced new coffee – Peet’s – late summer. And investing in better coffee just makes good business sense!
- A major legacy airline might spend ~ $10+ million a year on coffee.
- Improving it might even double the price!
However the value created for an airline far outstrips that price.
- Improved operational efficiency and reduced delays, by eliminating pilots stopping at Starbucks in the terminal on the way to the aircraft.
- Improved employee morale, which in turn affects customer service. Better coffee is a product flight attendants can be proud of and reduces complaints they receive from customers.
- This matters especially to high yield business travelers, exactly the customers American is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to win back.
American has instituted a number of quick wins as it strives to become more premium, while continuing the longer arc of new cabin products and lounges where investments began years ago. Hopefully coffee is more than just a quick win, but a real signal of shift at the airline to deliver quality to customers.
Good. Higher quality coffee makes for a better airline (impressed, specifically what jetBlue has done, offering espresso-based drinks in Mint). And, for the love of… please stop putting the use coffee bags in the lavatories to ‘spruce’ them up.
All lipstick on a pig until they start firing flight attendants who are incapable of providing premium customer service.
@George — For the most part, American Airlines has excellent crew members, as do nearly all US carriers and most foreign carriers. It’s unfortunate that you and others denigrate these hard-working professionals on here. It saddens me to think that some of my fellow frequent flyers are so antagonistic to towards the people that literally keep you safe and comfortable, while often over-worked and under-paid. I suppose, if nothing will ever be good enough, try flying private, start your own airline, or become a crew member yourself. Be the change you want to see!
@1990 I’m going to go with @George on this one. We both saw the earlier post about AA calling the police on passengers for no good reason. Until they can get consistency in employee behavior the rest is irrelevant. Good coffee will never make up for hateful employees. They may be all the employees, but the hateful ones exist in large enough quantities to keep many of us from going near AA. Hell, I’m flying Spirit next month just to avoid AA. Unless, of course, the money at Spirit runs out.
Apparently, coffee is more important than safety.
You can switch to whatever brand you want, but if it’s made in dirty coffee makers with bad water on an aircraft, it will never be good. Hopefully, they address the whole method in the way they handle coffee onboard.
I also think coffee on long-haul aircraft is much more important than on a 45-minute hop domestically.
Lavazza certainly has a premium association. Can’t fault that.
I would have preferred to see them expand their partnership with La Colombe. I associate Lavazza (and illy for that matter) with espresso and I want drip coffee in the air (also, they pretty much only serve drip coffee in the air). I found the La Colombe drip coffee in the Admirals Clubs to be good. And La Colombe, like illy, sells canned cold brew and lattes that American could have been selling on their flights (La Colombe even sells pumpkin spiced lattes by the can – those would have sold like hot cakes on a flight). Lavazza does not do canned beverages, as far as I am aware. Plus La Colombe is owned by Chobani which is a NY company.
A needed upgrade from non-branded swill, but really, all plane coffee is not very good. Grounds that have been sitting around for months versus freshly ground. Water issues. On a domestic flight get your own coffee before you get on the plane, and on a redeye where you are being served breakfast, have one cup of “whatever” before you land and get something better on arrival.
I agree that the plurality of crew are good, and most of the rest are fine.
But if 10% of crew are bad and I fly 100 times a year, interacting with 3 crew members each time, I have a 27% chance of getting a bad crew member each time I fly and will probably have about 30 bad experiences a year.
That’s why I say that bad crew members should be fired so the rest of the team’s hard work isn’t undone.
I’ll take you both on, then, because those incidents are outliers. I’ll also take-on @DesertGhost for his absurd suggestion that anyone is prioritizing coffee over safety. As Anatoly Dyatlov’s character says in the HBO series Chernobyl (ironically): “Safety first. Always.”
Big news! Glad to hear that AA is taking a solid step forward in customer satisfaction.
I’m thinking that the cost increase might be less than projected since coffee tends to be a less expensive option. There have been times when I ordered a beer but would have been perfectly happy with a good cup of coffee.
@Peter — Have you tried Blue Bottle yet? It’s higher-end, but still commercial. They originated in Oakland, CA, and have about 20 locations in NYC, around 80 in US (mostly CA, NY, MA, and overseas), and some overseas (Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Singapore.) Their single origin cold brews are excellent. Whichever airlines does a partnership with them would be a big win in my book.
@1990 – yes, sadly they closed the Blue Bottle location near me and they sold out to Nestle I believe awhile ago, but the pourover bar was a treat! I think Alaska’s partnership with Stumptown is probably as good as it gets, but I very rarely fly Alaska. And as premium as Delta may be, I’m sorry, Starbucks is just not my thing. But people obviously love it, so what do I know.
“Improved operational efficiency and reduced delays, by eliminating pilots stopping at Starbucks in the terminal on the way to the aircraft.”
Yeah, no. What a silly point. Dunkin baby!
Let’s bug the flight attendant while boarding to brew me a cup-a-joe. Not gonna happen. I’ll stop and grab one for myself, the FO and the #1.