News and notes from around the interweb:
- U.S. airlines collect over $28 billion from their credit card deals. Frontier Airlines leads the world with 62% ancillary revenue. Your fare is not the cost of your ticket!
- “Elsewhere in Nigeria, customs officials found a 40-foot shipping container filled with donkey genitals.” (HT: Joe R.)
- St. Regis Chicago’s restaurant adds 3% inflation surcharge they are openly stating “the published price is not the price.”
- Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena survives hellfire missile strike
- Aerolopa’s diagram of the new American Airlines Airbus A321XLR
- British Airways cut clotted cream from European business class. So much for a premium British carrier.
Yes, and the issue is Frontier is catering towards the low end of the economic spectrum which is getting hammered. No fare means no ancillary fees. Frontier isn’t all the far behind Spirit is racking up losses. For now, Frontier has an investment partner with deep pockets and a CEO that believes his ULCC can be profitable but at some point that’s going to go away if the losses continue.
“Frontier Airlines leads the world…” a phrase not often uttered. @George Romey, you forgot to blame #46, or the AutoPen, when it’s clearly #47’s wealth-killing tariffs and other bad policies harming everyone, especially the poor, who aren’t traveling; they just stay home when things go this way.
And, wow, a second Nigeria reference on VFTW in one week! Gonna need some more jollof rice. Extra chilies.
Finally, that new AA XLR with the Flagship Suites is a thing of beauty; kinda looks like the seat map of jetBlue’s transatlantic Mint product, but with the 3 rows of recliners after the lie-flat, and no ‘apartment’ seat in front.
Anyway, be safe out there, everyone. *sigh* wild times…
So there’s no extra legroom / MCE seating on the A321XLR? Or only exit row? That’s awful and a real downgrade for status holders / economy fliers. Kind of reminds me of the SAS A321Neo config (20 v 22J although all aisle access on AA), albeit credit to AA that economy at least still has 31″ of legroom versus 30″ on SAS. But between a paltry MCE offering on 787P and now basically no MCE on XLR, feels like a really unwelcome trend here. Even worse when traveling with kids as they cannot sit in an exit row. Can make J look splashy but this whole thing feels very budget and sardine-esque.
Why anyone would choose AA based on this LOPA is beyond me – if I had to choose a narrowbody to fly across the Atlantic, the B6 A321LR is a much more comfortable layout for most fliers. And why choose a narrowbody at all? Wake me up with the 777s are reconfigured, and hopefully JonNYC is correct that there will be 30 MCE seats on the new 777s (albeit 34″ v 35″ of legroom).
And if these XLRs are ultimately going to be flying JFK-LAX, people are really going to miss the days of the 321T which provided a much nicer experience for most (at least when the planes were actually being maintained). Even the 767-300’s DL flies JFK-LAX are a better experience than this AA XLR LOPA!
Ugh, sleezy restaurant practices. Really got to pay extra attention to whatever you’re paying for now more than ever.
@1990 — Dang, bad week to take “Nigeria references” off my daily VFTW bingo cards
@1990 – B6 A321LR economy is 32″ of pitch, has 24 even more space seats at 35″ and 24 business class seats. Much better config than AA with 31″ economy with only one exit row having extra legroom (and unclear if that’s even being marketed as MCE, although I have to imagine it will be). And only 20 business seats versus 24 mint. Will definitely feel cramped, especially with 17 more seats on the AA XLR overall versus B6.
If you value premium economy / domestic first (at 37″ here, not even 38″), I guess AA provides that offering. Kind of a weird 12 seat PE cabin. But if you are looking to fly at the back of the bus the message is clear – if you want to pay us for PE, great, but if you’re a status holder expecting an MCE seat, you are SOL.
Just don’t understand the use case here, especially when there are more comfortable planes to get transcontinental or transatlantic. I sort of get it for someone like SAS flying 8 hour routes between NY and Oslo – can do that in a 321 pretty economically without much competition. But on competitive routes like JFK-LHR/LAX? Good luck.
@Peter — I hear ya. The XLR is best for those willing to pay for the Flagship Suite, not those hoping for complimentary upgrades, or a better Economy seat.
As we know, AA is a for-profit company, not a charity, so I presume they planned this new aircraft to maximize profits, not necessarily reward their most loyal customers.
As for routes, that’ll be interesting because much of Europe is gonna be 8+ hours from North America, so they may need a third pilot, adding costs. Otherwise, domestic long-haul, transcon, Hawaii, etc., may be the goal.
As for premium cabins, more generally, on single-aisle aircraft, especially on 5-7 hour flights, other than ancient 757s at Delta and United, I’m surprised more US carriers haven’t implemented the 2-2 lie-flat seats on the 737max already, like Singapore, Copa, some ME carriers, etc. have done.
These are sales of travel, and they are low margin ones as well — like anything sold to huge customer. They end up as a liability on the balance sheet until the customer travels using them.
Basically they “make” $28b the same way they “make” $100 for seellng you a ticket for $100..
The correlation between high ancillary revenues and extremely poor financial performance is uncanny.
ULCCs using revenue from credit cards to make up for low fare losses is part of the business plan. I think the term “Ancillary Revenue” includes not only credit card revenues but also food charges, boarding order charges, seat upgrade charges, seat assignment charges, luggage charges and all other types of charges that they have implemented. Spirit was doing quite well until their passengers changed their habits.
@1990 – I mean, the AA 321T had 2-2 lie flat seats, right? Clearly going away from that model. And to your point, unless you are flying in a flagship suite, you’d be better off on pretty much any other carrier with the current XLR routes. So far they are positioning the XLR on JFK-LHR and then presumably JFK-LAX right? Those are some of the most highly competitive routes in the sky and there are plenty of options that consumers have to fly, with tons of widebodies. So why on earth would you fly the XLR as a non-business class passenger when there are multiple better options on both of those routes?
Again, I get it for SAS flying NYC to Oslo as an example – it’s the only non-stop game in town, right? But this config on these routes seems deficient, at least to me!
Ignoring the total number of seats (20 v. 10), AA’s 321T is a much nicer layout in J, compared to the 321XLR. Why turn the seats inward, away from the windows? Reminds me of the original Upper Class seats on VX… Of course, the “T” is a nicer layout all-around, but that’s gone the way of the dodo.
@Jason – I presume it saves a ton of space and you can squeeze an extra J seat on each side having inward versus outward facing seats. Of course 321T had 10 first and 20 business seats versus XLR 20 business and 12 PE. No question the quality of the hard product business seat has now improved, and AA could never deliver enough of a soft product to make the upgrade to first worth it anyway.
But if cost-neutral why fly this XLR over Delta? In J you can get a widebody on DL with access to the D1 lounge. Unless you are paying for business plus on AA you’re getting a narrowbody plus access to Greenwich. And in economy even the old 767s are more comfortable than this new XLR. Have to presume AA will be competing with DL on cost…
@Peter — You’re making good points. I think we’re going to have to wait and see what routes AA operates these new aircraft on. Ideally, the XLR enables either more frequency or access to smaller airports in Western Europe. For example, on the transatlantic routes, TAP has done this with their a321neo, EWR-OPO, whereas in the past, you’d need to connect in LIS. As I’ve discussed with Tim Dunn on here, there may be a third pilot requirement for 8+ hour flights, which is added cost for the airline.
@1990 – agree completely, and we all know AA needs more, and more interesting, routes to Europe. Don’t need an XLR to fly to Portugal, but plenty of other primary and secondary cities to fly to! How about a direct flight to Germany? Austria? Norway? Give us an interesting route to fly to/from JFK!
If they’re deploying the XLRs on LHR to start because they are refurbishing the 777s, that makes sense of course.
To your other point, quickly becomes 19J not 20J if a J seat is needed for crew rest. Given the door on the suite perhaps there doesn’t need to be one of those full crew rest privacy curtains?
@1990 – here’s another question – complimentary upgrades on AA are from main/PE to business/domestic first. But here we have a plane that’s configured with PE and intentionally being flown within north america JFK-LAX, right? So… when it comes time to issue complimentary upgrades, are you only going to be eligible for an upgrade from main to business? And if J is full you’re out of luck?
A bit different from the occasional bonus widebody flight in north america or when they were flying around widebodies post covid and you could select first class seats even if paying for domestic first; PE if paying for MCE, etc.
I mean, other than dealing with EWR and the lack of a lounge, if you’re OWE with AA, aren’t you better off flying Alaska from EWR to LAX on a 737-9 or whatever and selecting a premium extra legroom seat at time of booking plus getting on the upgrade list for domestic first? Having a guarantee of 4″ of extra legroom on a transcon flight versus roulette with AA… especially if flying with the family… I don’t know…
@Peter — It’s funny you mention the ‘curtain’ seats; Delta has them on some of their 764 in seat 4D (got it recently.)
As to AA operating its 773 on domestic short-haul, yes, I’ve gotten the Flagship First seat on JFK-MIA, and have seen it on MIA-DFW; purchased Business, got that seat. Pretty cool while it lasts.
As for transcon, if seeking premium cabins, I’d certainly prefer lie-flat over recliner, so, I’d probably still go with AA, DL, UA, or B6 from NYC-LAX/SFO, but Alaska does have better prices on those routes (ya get what ya pay for, sorta). And I hear you, if flying in back, perhaps AS is the way to go.
On AS, there might be access to Admirals Club at Terminal A (it’s fairly nice and new); though, more broadly on their NYC operations, the with their recent move at JFK from T7 to T8, it’s been interesting since AS closed their lounge at T7. Lotta changes with the new terminals (1, 6/7) there. In fact, every couple weeks it’s like a totally new traffic pattern over there.
@1990 – I think AS is flying EWR Terminal B, not A. So… yeah. Yuck. But again, if flying economy, being guaranteed an extra 4″ of legroom is pretty nice. And not always paying up for business when buying 4x roundtrip tickets on a domestic flight.
Admirals Club EWR TA though is perfectly nice, although I hate how they designed the TA lounges to be open to the terminal below – so noisy.
Here’s to JFK 2030!