American Airlines CEO Doug Parker’s Advice to Graduates

by Gary Leff

News and notes from around the interweb:

  • The 13 all-time ugliest airplanes

  • This passenger claims the Turkish Airlines check-in agent “talked about my mother” and melts down, encouraging the carrier to have the police respond.

  • Why businesses already have your new credit card expiration date and security code when you get an updated card. You probably agreed to this when you signed up for recurring payments.

    An automatic updater service can update everything from expiration dates and account numbers to CVV numbers and closed account notices for businesses that process a ton of credit cards. Provided by a credit card network (Visa, Mastercard, etc.), the service allows retailers to send a list of accounts on a regular basis for updating.

    Depending on when those lists get sent back and forth, your subscriptions could get updated before you receive your new card in the mail. Some account updater services even offer real-time updates that are triggered after a card has been declined once for a recurring payment.

  • If more Marriotts offered Bonvoy members ice cream, that could go a long way towards a rapprochement with the program!

  • Glowing profile of American Airlines CEO Doug Parker for taking his compensation in stock rather than cash

  • Doug Parker’s commencement address at Southern Methodist University. He talks about how divisive it is to discuss divisiveness (though doesn’t want to encourage everyone to become more United, natch). He longs for a past where the media supposedly was careful with facts and balanced.

    Polarization of course dates back before the American founding, and the media’s past is not nearly so glorious. Indeed at the end of the 18th century the two US political parties each sponsored a nationwide network of weekly newspapers whose purpose was to attack the other.

  • Going above and beyond for an obviously very important passenger!

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. Parker would done better by imparting some experience on the graduates, like not letting facts or morals get in the way of doing what you feel like, or telling them not to drink and drive because getting a DUI sucks.

  2. Parker’s commencement speech was well above average (including its brevity!) from what I witnessed this weekend. It actually offered some pretty good insight into the changes — good and bad — that new college graduates have lived through in the past couple of decades. Your suggestion that Parker misunderstands the history of media polarization is silly. Parker obviously wasn’t talking about the 1780s; he was comparing the current media climate to that of the 1980s. As a former journalist myself, his observation is spot on. Back then, the media made money by at least attempting to be objective. Now that make money by being partisan. This isn’t good for the country, and we’d all be better off if it changed.
    As to the benefit of travel making the world less polarizing, I’m more skeptical. I think travel is very educational, and that’s a huge individual benefit. You do learn that the people of the world are more than same than they are different. But it doesn’t necessarily make you think that the political ideas that you disagreed with before you travelled now have more merit. For example, in college I thought capitalism had significant imperfections but was, by far, the best economic system. What I’ve seen has only reinforced and strengthened my pre-existing views.

  3. If anyone thinks commencement speeches are anything more than fluff they are overthinking it. The standard platitudes and stories yet the success stories don’t mention the special circumstances and stars aligning that allowed it. I would listen too closely to any address.

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