Flyers don’t think much of American Airlines. That didn’t used to be the case. I know that up until a decade ago, when I needed to travel somewhere, I’d go straight to AA.com to see what my options were. I was so happy with how I was treated through the AAdvantage program that there wasn’t a reason to consider other options.
Even before the pandemic the airline’s data showed that frequent flyers were moving away from American. The percentage of revenue that the airline derived from infrequent customers grew between 2015 and 2020, while the revenue from frequent customers declined during that period.
That’s not surprising because it’s people who fly the most who (1) understand the difference in product [they are repeat buyers!] and (2) are willing to spend more to get the experience they want. They suffered from degraded product and service – less legroom and seat padding both in the front and back cabins, less food and lower quality meals on board (again in both cabins) and myriad cuts across the board.
These reputational issues have now gone mainstream, beyond just frequent flyers. Degraded product, less food, and lackluster service – combined with choices like removing seat back entertainment screens – has produced a huge gap in net promoter score between America and its peers. It’s actually a double digit gap with United – and, as aviation watchdog JonNYC notes, the data shows a gap that is twice that large with Delta.
as in if the deficit to UA is "X" the deficit to DL is more than 2x "X"
— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) February 27, 2025
A counterpoint from someone I trust:
"I'm not super optimistic but at least they've acknowledged reality (via the NPS score deficit etc) and have begun the 12 steps– I feel they are acknowledging that tinkering around the edges or improving D0 won't reduce that gap"
— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) February 27, 2025
American Airlines used to ignore net promoter score entirely, preferring to look at their own post-flight survey results for ‘likelihood to recommend’. So even considering NPS is progress. A month ago I reported exclusively that American was plotting a pivot to premium to address the gap in flyers’ choice to buy from United and from Delta rather than from them.
I laid out a blueprint for how American Airlines could become a premium carrier. It’s not about touting the premium initiatives already underway, like new business class seats, more domestic first class seats, and a new Philadelphia business class lounge.
Credit: American Airlines
Instead, it’s about making symbolic efforts that show caring about details matter, signaling to employees that things have changed and there’s a new premium mission, and revisiting policies that don’t start with customer needs.
To be sure, $8 wines in Flagship First Class don’t cut it, and giving the same amenity kit contents to premium economy passengers, business class passengers and first class passengers won’t cut it either.
However, shifting the mindset of the company needs leaders out talking to employees, but delivering a message about the vision for how the airline will win and making big symbolic changes to demonstrate the message is real. And it takes investing in more than business and first class, because most passengers fly coach.
Oof. Another win for Delta (and United, sorta)–Tim’s gonna love this! For premium travel, I’ll come back to American once the new business class suites finally are live (so delayed), they start operating the a321XLR, update the olders Flagships, and (maybe too much hope-ium on this last one) allow Citi as transfer partner. Honestly, I like what they’ve done at JFK T8 with Chelsea and Soho lounges–that does compete with Delta One and United Polaris. OneWorld is a good alliance–partners like Qatar, JAL, Cathay are personal favorites. AA’s Caribbean network out of MIA is simply the best of any carrier. No fan of their short-to-medium haul 737 or a321 with no IFE, but whatever–can’t have it all–nothing a little Aviation gin can’t help wash down, amiright?
No, Gary, this isn’t true and as an economist (i.e. empirically driven quantitative scientist) you should know better.
NPS is not predictive of meaningful business metrics – you know, the kind that track growth, financial health, and dollar value to shareholders. See Keiningham et al., 2007.
NPS goes against best practices in psychometrics and survey methodology. Every quantitative social scientist should cringe when valuable information is discarded (NPS conflates scores of 9 and 10, among other heretical practices) from a measurement model.
In ignoring NPS, AA was ignoring psychometric voodoo. It’s a pure marketing ploy to bring it back.
well done for covering, Gary… noteworthy that the NPS difference between AA and UA is X times but 2X for DL.
Explains fully why DL has grown as much in NYC and LAX relative to AA;; the only reason why UA has grown as much in Chicago relative to AA is because DL is so much smaller.
You certainly noted that AA is testing free WiFi which Ben notes is a start but it is doubtful that AA can regain the market share in the top markets that it has lost.
and DL is still likely to grow in Texas and to Latin America which will come at AA’s expense.
It is more likely that WN can fix their problems and regain traffic – and they might end up w/ better loyalty than AA which matters in a lot of markets.
AA will likely be the wounded animal that the other big 3 and esp. DL, UA and WN in that order continue to feed on.
No buddy, nothing “explains fully” (i.e. explains 100% of the variance – an R-squared value of 1 which is completely unheard of, in fact anything even close to that is completely unheard of in business and social sciences) and as I just described before you, granted you and I were typing our comments at the same time probably (per our timestamps) — NPS is useless. It might be true that DL does many things better but we’d need better measurements of those things. Not NPS.
My IQ has got to be higher than 1990’s and Tim Dunn’s combined.
or perhaps we don’t need mathematically accurate formulae to know that AA’s weakness has fueled DL’s success – whether it is 100% or 51%, the evidence is obvious.
and I agree that chasing NPS is a fool’s errand but it does measure trends and also shows relative gaps.
The gap between AA and DL is enormously wide.
The only real takeaway is why DL hasn’t pounced harder on AA, esp. in Dallas and S. Florida
Free WiFi is a start.
Fix standby at the airport. Allow routing flexibility.
Allow checked bags across tickets.
They’ll never get the planes fixed in time to stop the death spiral.
@Dick — You can make your point without insulting others. But since you went there, are you the Dick who was moping about relationships on another post a little while back, and who thinks NYC is stuck in the 1970s, because that guy’s a lost cause. I hope you are a different ‘Dick’ but I doubt it.
It became perfectly clear to me that aa is on a path to absolute crap last year when i tried to Book an international flight w a stopover. Their website could absolutely not do it. Error after error. When i called their helpline they could only book me for twice the price the website quoted. What a mess. When i tried ba qs alternative it gave me the exact same issues. I guess they use the same systems. I will avoid aa like the plague.
Sounds to me like “Miss 1990” has a crush on Dick.
If AA is losing passengers that buy premium (or at least cash upgrades) and use co branded cc that’s an issue. Seems as though AA need to get back to the basics of:
1. Better communication on delays
2. Focus on recovery. The number of times a flight comes in late and passengers are trying to make a connection and the plane waits 10 minutes for a marshalling crew and/or a gate agent is staggering
3. Consistent service from premium cabin flight attendants. Pre departure beverages, completing the meal service (where applicable) on time and stop running in the back to hide most of the flight
4. Improve customer facing IT
I will point out that there are two types of NPS score: relational and transactional.
They probably ignored relational NPS scores, while “likelihood to recommend” after an event (i.e., post-flight) is considered transactional NPS for most Voice of Customer programs.
As an Alaska elite, I’ll fly an occasional AA flight (if I have to) to get where I’m going.
But boy, AA makes it tough. On a recent r/t from GEG to DFW, there were no Main Cabin Extra rows (other than exit and bulkhead), no buy on board meal/snack options for a 3.5 hour flight, and only one pass for beverages.
They tried charging me for a checked bag in GEG (oneworld sapphire) and seemed flummoxed that I wasn’t willing to pay the fee. DFW didn’t have the issue — but GEG did (with a heck of a larger AS customer base flying on AA out of GEG.)
I appreciated AS even more after that AA roundtrip flight.
Ignore your customers and they will go away . Given what they did to 3million milers with their lifetime revamp , nothing from AA surprises me anymore.
I have been flying AA for almost 60 years. I am one of the first to join the AA frequent flyer program. I have witnessed the decline in service, seating space and the decline of value being a frequent flyer member. Years ago I stopped prioritizing flying AA to gain miles. It no longer has any value. What I do value is price, comfort, direct flights and treatment as a valued customer. AA has lost it way. I now only chose AA if the price is right and the flight is more convenient. Part of the problem is how they have treated their employees over the years. Basically, the same way Trump is treating Federal employees.
The fish rots from the head. They are in a death spiral and the first step will be a new C-Suite. They probably need a new Board also as the current board have been derelict in allowing it get to this point. They need a total culture change but the current leaders are toxic, do not see how they can change stripes.
Its taken UA 10yrs to get from Smisek to where they now are. So its gonna be a long road back.
@Miguel95 — Nah, I’m not ‘into’ Dick.
I notice Gary is jumping for joy – rhetorically. The article is totally slanted with little semblance of objectivity. Is that because Gary wants to see American Airlines liquidated?
In fairness, American really does need to up its passenger experience game. I’m not so blind or naive that I don’t understand that.
@DesertGhost — I was under the impression that Gary is a ‘thought leader,’ as-in, he can editorialize as much he wants. What is it with you folks that expect VFTW to be the ‘Associated Press’? (Speak of, it’s still the ‘Gulf of Mexico’ to most.)
usually, i agree with Gary’s opinions but not this time. In the bast he and I compared the requirements for business/first award international travel, and we both agreed that Delta has the most obnoxious miles requirements (300K-400 K one way award tickets). United has somewhat better (it was really good before it jacked up requirements from 80K to 245K–and the lowest miles requirements was on the worst possible itineraries, anywhere from 30 to 50 hours ). American, on the other hand, at least occasionally offers 57.5K-62.5 K, if you book far in advance.
Frankly, I’ m surprised and disappointed that Gary never mentioned about the above-mentioned facts in his article….
I live in Atlanta, and yet I stopped flying Delta internationally almost that 15 years ago, when they introduced so called” dynamic” miles requirements on their international flights…So who possibly care about the quality of food or wine on the flight is you can’t use your hard-earned miles on the premium cabins flying internationally?
As an AA guy since DCA became home airport 26 years ago, but now no status but with a Bask Bank account – I’m an awards traveler and had great trips via AA miles back in 2013 first RTW trip (DCA DFW SFO HKG SIN HKG JBL CPT LHR DFW DCA) in First for 260,000 AA Miles
need to fly to CID and have in the past taken the AA Nonstop RT This time flying out later and on a CR550 from ORD we’ll take the transfer.
also first Delta flight in decades to get to JFK coming up in May
Definitely need new leadership @AA
Confused by your statement, Gary: “It’s actually a double digit gap with United – and, as aviation watchdog JonNYC notes, the data shows a gap that is twice as large as that with Delta”. Your statement implies that the gap between American and United is much larger than the gap between American and Delta. The opposite is true: JonNYC stated “NPS deficit to UA is substantial and to DL it’s gigantic”, as well as “as in if the deficit to UA is “X” the deficit to DL is more than 2x “X””. Both statements indicate that the gap between American and Delta is by far the larger one, not as you state the other way around.
@TexasTJ I have clarified (“the data shows a gap that is twice that large with Delta.”)
This totally mirrors my impressions as a customer and my behavior. Largely due to AA’s declines at ORD (poor flight times for business travel, limited flights to some major markets, etc.), a ton of my (paid first) business has moved to UA. And my experience on UA is better: better lounges, better app, better website, better on-board service, and (when you get a new or refurbished aircraft, which I often do), better plane, too. The only reason I continue to earn AA status is frequently flying on AS. Though even that is annoying as the flights don’t credit correctly a not insignificant amount of the time and correcting the error (not once in my favor) has required 60 days and 3 letters to AA each time, despite all needed documentation being included in the original note.
At least AA seems to be more ready to compete at ORD again on schedule (well, the devil will be in the details) and it seems management is paying attention that schedule and on-time performance (neither of which are competitive anyway out of ORD anymore, ironically) aren’t enough to win business.
Time will tell.
Sounds like what AA needs is Oscar Munoz.
If American really wants to succeed all they have to do is look at every policy with one question in mind: “What will our loyal customers think of this, so we can make them happier and earn better revenue as a result of that happiness?”
What Tom said. Also, it baffles me how there are still so many AApologists on travel blogs who continue to insist that DL, UA, and AA are all effectively “the same on average” in domestic first when every available metric points in the complete opposite direction.
Do you guys really care about screens in seatbacks that much? Seriously. I zero percent care about that.
@Andrew Hime — You uncultured swine! IFE screens are a mark of true sophistication—Champagne, while others serve mere sparkling wine, Prosecco, or Cava—yuck! How can DL and UA and B6 manage screens, while AA cannot be bothered for anything but its long-haul fleet. How dare!
First, I understand I’m just a blip in the spreadsheet and not expecting the moon but there are companies that don’t even remember why they are in that business and you all just a number of ‘total lifetime revenue’ and proceed accordingly … American is just like Comcast. “We cannot figure out why you’re buying less from us so let’s raise fees & rates.” A normal, reasonable business person cannot understand that thinking but there companies who operate like that … until they don’t. I stopped flying AA decades ago … when they started to stop caring … of course, I live in the SF Bay Area so AA is easy to avoid… and yes, I would rather fly Frontier (and have) over AA.
@ Gary — I consider this good news. It makes it less likely that AA will implement as massive of a partner devalaution as DL and UA and LH and everyone else, pretty much…
Many of the things”frequent travelers” complain about here like ammenity kits and seat back IFE, honestly who gives a d@mn. I don’t even open the ammenity kit on some box flights. It’s silly junk for the most part. However basic service on AA is simply terrible these days, on par with Spirit. Flew PHL to Liberia ,CR recently ,so not a long flight but still a 5 hr international . Flight attendant was sleeping in the back with the curtain drawn, one beverage service the entire flight, no food for purchase was available, tried to buy a couple beers and the flight attendants complained their hand held readers wouldnt work with my credit card. Just laughable service all around, and my expectations for a Y flight are really minimal. Until this culture changes AA will continue to be a mess
@Gene – You would think so, wouldn’t you? Has AA acted in a prudent or even reasonable fashion lately?
I’m for Christian as the new CEO of AA. He has boiled down the issues to a single critical focus.
AA will never catch up until their employees start to actually do their jobs. PDB are a distant memory despite FA’s getting paid do provide them. 3 hour flights with one one pass thru of a drinks cart don’t cut it. When they jettison the deadweight of employees who are angry at them or burnt out then….maybe.
Maybe
@ Christian — Yeah, reminds me of the geniuses running LH.
American Airlines lost all credibility and loyalty when it was taken over by U.S. Airways in a hostile takeover. Although it retained the American Airlines name and livery to appear premium, the customer service and flight quality quickly degraded to that for which U.S. Airways was known. At that time I was an Executive Platinum frequent flyer. I loyalty and patronage quickly shifted to United and Delta. That was years ago and I still haven’t flew AA enough to use up the frequent flyer miles I’d earned.
I have to fly a wide variety of airlines, because of where I travel and my job. I have flown on at least 60 airlines so far.
I have to use Delta. They are the best, BUT they are not great, like the best Asian carriers, and it takes a LOT of miles to get free tickets. So, I stopped trying to fly them first… they are #2 for me.
I had to decide between UAL and AA, as my first choice carrier. A few years ago I read about how UAL was putting in larger overhead bins, better seat back entertainment, and making their planes nicer.
At the same time, AA announced, publicly, how their new 737s would have more rows of seats, smaller bathrooms, and no seat back entertainment. Then they said they would retrofit their old planes, just like these new, crappy 737s.
That was it for me. AA was my new last choice airline.
AND, no American carrier has first class…. only foreign carriers on their larger aircraft. Most foreign carriers, especially Asian, have MUCH better business class than the US carriers best seats, which are really business seats, despite their claims.
WE are ALL ONE
Use your Free Will to LOVE!… it will help more than you know
Lol.. Tim Dunn is now hallucinating that DL has become a player in Texas and Latin America. They are dropping pretty much everything they added in MIA – MCO gone, MDE, gone, NAS gone…So much for their new super mega MIA hub for Latin America. The reality is DL is a non-player in Latin America, just like at London. It is basically whatever LA has; they’ve always had. What does DL have in Latin America to speak of: ATL? That is a joke.
People flying aircraft need to be
– treated with kindness and respect: “guest” not “customer”
– not herded in a hurry up but wait boarding process that takes over 1/2 hour when the Asian airline the week before did it in 10 minutes for the same aircraft and load
– seated comfortably, not in the slimmest lightest seat ever made that got crammed closer together.
– provided with food and drink that is well beyond scarce
– this thinking that nickel and diming is profitable needs to be exorcised. It is not acceptable. No luggage allowances have led to wild carryons and endless boarding and disembarkation.
– bathrooms so narrow that we humans cannot clean ourselves…degrading. – -As are dirty bathrooms, as the crew is too busy to clean them a few times, being on their phones, gossiping, or moaning to passengers about their terrible jobs. ‘
Are you listening AA & competition? Looking at Lufthansa and British Airways, yes, you, too.
For a lot of us American isn’t a choice. It’s not an airline it’s the airline. If you need to go to anywhere in Latin america, Americans the airline, they have a lot more flights than everyone else.. and they’re the only one that lets you get affordable prices using miles. We fly on them again and again.. sometimes it’s great sometimes it isn’t. Their planes might not be as fancy as Delta or United.. but with a strong mileage program and a lot more flight times to Latin America than anyone else.. I’m glad they are around. I just really hope they don’t devalue the mile program, without that there won’t be much to be happy about. I have Platinum status now so it no longer affects me.. but my major pet peeve is they are the only major US airline that doesn’t give you a free checked bag if you have their credit card.. not even if you have a high level card.. On AA it’s only good for itineraries that are solely domestic.
@KS — Delta has plenty of options to all over Latin America, namely from ATL and JFK, and is not just relying on its partnership with LATAM, which is also a good airline with an excellent premium product on its 787. I’ve taken many of those routes with both airlines. I wasn’t aware of claims of Miami or Texas being a new ‘stronghold,’ but Delta has a ‘presence’ in both, it’s just mostly domestic focused—clearly, for hubs, MIA and DFW is American, and IAH is United—no one denies that. And who cares about MIA-MCO; it’s a 30 minute flight! Just drive (everyone has to have a car to live in Florida anyway) or take the freaking Brightline!
A friend who is an American FA told me that American only has one drink service on a 5 hours flight, she wanted to do a simple water walk, offering cups of water for her passengers, the other FA told her that she would make them “look bad”. They actually got into an argument in the back gally over this.
I can see how American passengers no longer feel welcome…
Recently flew business class from Quito to Miami to Charlotte to Lexington round trip. There is no in flight entertainment at all unless you stream on your own device..which this is twice now wifi didn’t work. I expect more for the price and will probably fly UA now as Delta doesn’t allow access to their SkyClub as the flight from Quito to Atlanta doesn’t have lie flat seats, and the connections are not booked in First class
Once upon a time I was a very loyal AA frequent flyer..regardless..but the merge happens and started to go down hill…to a point unless you paid for buss or first class..you would get barely a coffee, soda or water.. cancelled my cards and frequent flyer after in a 5 hours flight, outside of the country was not even given the option to buy snacks or a meal, on the way assumed it was an oops moment but them..return flight 7 am…the same, lucky I had purchased pastries and some other good, other passengers told me they been doing that to several international routes even if they are over 4 hours..then my connection was delayed for about 10 hours with no explanation and had us running all over their gates..changed every hour or so…also not even a voucher..so yeah..American has gone worst than spirit
LMAO, just retired after 40yrs as an FA. Started at TWA when people dressed up and didn’t act like animals! You all brought this on to yourselves, because you all want everything for nothing. Everyone gets a trophy mentality!!!!
Well Done CEO Robert Isom! You’ve achieved your goal of being a top 3 carrier with a copy of poor Spirit service and product. Well Done. Give yourself another bonus.
American board members need to fire him and his whole staff group. Horrible management and concept for a airline that used to be #1 in the industry.
Clean house at the top. Start over with fresh new management who have a good idea on how to run and improve a airline.
Time to Start Over!
IT IS IMPORTANT TO NOTE THAT THE DECLINE IN SERVICE WAS AN INTENTIONAL CHOICE BY AA MANAGEMENT.
When COVID hit, AA reduced cabin crew staffing levels. There were fewer tasks and passenger interactions. Post-COVID, AA did not restore cabin crew staffing levels . . . even though tasks and passenger interactions returned to pre-COVID levels . . . and service suffered. All too often, I see comments criticizing the cabin crew. But, it’s actually management that created the problem.
Like Gary, AA had been my go-to airline. I had been a CK for years. But, for this service reason, the announced elimination of long-haul first class, and certain network changes, I use other carriers for all but one route.
Years ago, having been a 1K on United for so long that I am gold for life, i got fed up with United and switched to American. I couldn’t believe how superior American was. (I am platinum fir life with over 3 million mikes on American.)Then USAir took over and that was the end. I now try to avoid AA as much as possible.
Frontier 2.0
Dallas is now a major international financial and business centre. Sadly, we are saddled with AA’s fortress hub at DFW. I would love for UA or DL to re-hub here. UA isn’t likely due to IAH, DEN proximity. DL could, however. DFW has far more anirline spend and originating/terminating pax than SLC or MSP. AA is a huge drag on people in Dallas. We fly them because we have to, not because we want to. An important business centre like Dallas deserves better.