American Airlines Chief Operating Officer David Seymour and Chief Customer Officer Heather Garboden did the opening panel at Skift‘s aviation forum Wednesday morning in Fort Worth. Seymour talked about the airline’s operations, and the government shutdown, while Garboden talked about the airline’s efforts to lead in premium products.
One piece of news that Garboden shared publicly for the first time is that the airline will announce next week that mattress pads coming to all long haul business class flights, after adding them to longer distance ones this summer. This is actually news that I broke in late October.
Garboden suggests thta “even before Covid, we saw a younger generation being a demographic of our customer base and they’re willing to pay more for…differentiated experiences.” Delta targets the shift in customer preferences to ten years ago.
And this points to the fundamental challenge American faces, and why they are behind. In 2018, then-President and now CEO Robert Isom was laying out a vision for the airline that they competed primarily with Spirit and Frontier, and that what passengers were interested in was just the lowest fare. In other words, they got the trends wrong and what customers wanted wrong.
Nonetheless, she argues that American has the best or at least truly competitive premium product. She says “if you look at our premium long haul experience, we have an unbelieveable product” that is “..as good or better than our peers.”
- On seats I agree with this!
- About half of Delta’s fleet has 2013 or earlier seats in business, with their 767 product worse than any other major carrier across the Atlantic.
- While American has many different seat products, I find their worst one to be better than United’s.
- And United’s Polaris seats are about density, not quality. Approved by disgraced CEO Jeff Smisek, the project was about achieving lie flat aisle access without giving each seat more aircraft space than when the configuration was 2-2-2 with a basic Diamond seat.
She’s on shakier ground talking about premium lounges. “We have more premium lounges than any other airline in the united states. We started the premium lounges and we’re only look to expand them.” Flagship lounges aren’t as nice as Polaris lounges which aren’t as nice as Delta One lounges. The design of Philadelphia Flagship is nice (which is why I’m glad that they delayed the lounge several years), but the food program lags.
Flagship Lounge Philadelphia
Flagship Lounge Philadelphia
American will be making a “steady stream of exciting lounge announcements over the next year” and will be “focused on partnering with regional chefs and restaurants” the à la carte ordering they introduced in the Philadelphia Flagship lounge (and everyone forgets that the Soho lounge at JFK has this, and it came first there) will “expand to our other flagship lounges as well.” So at some point we’ll see it coming elsewhere – great, because the food game isn’t nearly so good at DFW or Miami or Los Angeles.
Soho Lounge New York JFK
This all matters because Garboden says that one point of net promoter score improvement yields $50 million to $100 million in revenue. While she notes that they’re focused beyond just premium customers, to all customers with more buy on board food and free wifi starting next month, she does not mention service or the experience provided by American’s front line team. That’s a problem for the airline that needs intensive focus.
David Seymour was asked about American’s lagging international route network and why their domestic strategy hasn’t worked. He did not push back, instead arguing that American has fewer long haul aircraft than competitors, partly because of delivery delays from manufacturers, though he also recognizes that it’s because they retired their Airbus A330, Boeing 767 and 767 fleets during the pandemic but argues that’s a good thing (it was a mistake). I’d point out that it’s not just American being a victim of suppliers, and that American should own that they bet wrong on the timing of these suppliers. American has cut orders for long haul aircraft from both Boeing and Airbus.
The ‘pivot to premium’ is so back! …do more MCE! (just for you, @Peter).
American’s executives can, with a straight face, claim that the airline leads in premium offerings because they still offer a first-class cabin on select international and transcontinental routes — a product that is, at least on paper, more premium than the business-class offerings or recliner first-class found on other U.S. carriers.
@FNT Delta Diamond — In 2024, Seymour received total compensation of $4,894,898. CEO Isom got more than 3x that, $15,610,843 (and closer to $34 million in 2023!). Meanwhile, median employee compensation is $81,744, across all roles (191:1), but, flight attendants are at just $30-70K/year. Wonder who can afford to fly up-front on their own airline. Something to think about… or not.
I think this article sums up why the big three will never reach premium status. They only compare themselves to each other.
Newsflash: Set the bar higher and look at the Asian and Middle East carriers. You don’t have to copy everything they do, but at least shoot for a goal that’s morre than simply offering one tiny thing more than your domestic competitor.
DL’s 330CEOs are their largest fleet type w/o Delta One Suites and they have Cirrus seats which are the same as what AA uses on a chunk of its fleet.
and DL has 80 aircraft with Delta One Suites; AA has a couple planes w/ their new suite product
@1990 – if you want to improve and retain loyalty (which is a huge driver of revenue), you need extra legroom economy seating. Delta and United recognize this, not sure why AA is not willing to retain that seating. It matters, and it’s a relatively easy fix as these things go!
Mattress pads are nice touch, but nicer would be working with BA to improve the joint premium lounges. Yes Soho is nice, and I enjoy Soho, but Greenwich is now nowhere near the standard that Delta One offers to JFK flyers, which is what most business class flyers have access to (and the lounge that I use when traveling with the family as I am the only OWE and not a monster, except for this summer in Japan when I popped into the JAL First lounge for a few minutes because, I mean, come on). I enjoy the 20-30 open bottles of Piper H champagne at Greenwich as much as the next person, but more needs to be done. Honestly those spaces are now looking very flat as compared to some of the newer AA Flagship lounges.
The planes are not there for huge International expansion. That ship has long ago sailed. That being said I don’t know what the second market has available on widebodies.
Most passengers fly coach and most passengers fly domestic whether in coach or first. I really don’t see huge changes there. Slightly better coffee and maybe BOB meals.
Operationally, AA has a ways to go. While moving everyone towards a chatbox seems to be the future the chatbox has to be effective. Unfortunately, most people still stand in a 200 person line at a rebooking desk (or wait three hours for a rep) rather than trying to resolve finding an alternative flight through the app or desktop version. People that upload endless selfies of themselves on Tik Tok or Instagram couldn’t use the app if their life depended upon it.
Sorry AA. The seats don’t really matter when you constantly have “mechanical issues” and more than acceptable numbers of cancelled and delayed flights. I’ll sit in a smaller lie flat, thank you.
I can see it now. Mattress pads are now available. Ring your button. And Sara will come out and tell you to go get it yourself. We are here for the safety only.
I can honestly say that if can choose between having a mattress pad or no surly FA’s, I’ll take the no surly FA’s every time.
Robert should be ashamed of himself for letting American Flagship First slowly whither and die like an abandoned infant on a mountaintop in Greek mythology
@Peter — That certainly used to be the old way of doing things (treat people better, get more business); however, these days, and moving forward, I doubt whether we, the passengers, are even the actual ‘customers’ anymore. It seems like airlines, as with many businesses, don’t care about the consumers (or their workers), and may actually think of them with contempt (see that recent Campbell’s Soup executive who was recorded saying company’s products are for ‘poor people’). Rather, the C-Suite are mere mercenaries for majority shareholders; and, the companies really are just ‘credit cards with wings.’ Like, sure, they gotta fly some, but, reliability, comfort, etc. really doesn’t matter if they can run programs that make money for them. That is, of course, until this ‘house of cards’ finally crumbles.
Sorry but the soft product is weak which will hurt service standards. Not enough staff on these flights.
The soft product, as it is across the US3 in terms of service ethos and attention to detail, just isn’t there. It varies at AA from folksy to cold to over-worked. Agree that AA’s lie flat seats, from their worst (the Safran) to their best (brand new Flagship product on the Ps) is better than anything that DL offers except for maybe the A339 and A359 Delta One Suite, which is their flagship product, but what is across the rest of the fleet (A332/A333, 763/764) is abysmal. Delta’s lounges are a touch more premium (specifically Delta One, not the Sky Clubs but for the newest iterations of the latter). United overall remains a much improved airline on many metrics, but the service on board can be really bad, the food is terrible, there’s nothing really premium about United’s brand, just shades of it around the edges, and its hub facilities are generally unremarkable. AA has a lot of ground to catch up on though, in terms of profitability and it is trying to do it as the economy is heading in the wrong direction.
When these airline execs have their secret meeting at their annual getaway where they certainly don’t collude do they all make some kind of weird pact where they promise to say really stupid lies to destroy their credibility? This one has Scott Kirby written all over it: ridiculous hyperbole that no remotely informed person would believe for a second.
@Christian — I hear that the next ‘collusion’ meet-up is in Saudi Arabia… “Disparaging remarks against the royal family are strictly prohibited.”
Gary,
This statement: “And United’s Polaris seats are about density, not quality. Approved by disgraced CEO Jeff Smisek, the project was about achieving lie flat aisle access without giving each seat more aircraft space than when the configuration was 2-2-2 with a basic Diamond seat.”
I believe the last part should read ‘2-4-2 with the old IPTE configuration’. Polaris cabin spacing was designed to keep the 2-4-2 cabin density the same, not keep the 2-2-2 sCO the same, at least when it came to the 77E fleet. It was only the sCO fleet that had 2-2-2, sUA widebodies were far denser with the IPTE that was replaced by Polaris.
Air mattress?
I barely fit in those coffin pods, much less sleep in them.
Light classical muzak and a non-LED-glare reading lamp would suffice for me.
Maybe some power outlets with actual power, too.
How about upgrading to drinkable wine like UNITED has
I agree NPS = $$ and glad they see that
And you have to admit the Polaris seat gets a lot of bang for the real estate with regard to the occasional premium leisure fliers perceiving it as state of the art – well played actually business wise
1). American will continue to fail under Robert Isom’s total lack of leadership. The man is a total wimp & overall the employees despise him. Absolutely no leadership skills as he’s the proverbial skinny little geek that always got beat up in school.
The only thing he has in common with Robert Crandall is the first name.
Nothing more & nothing less.
My neighbor is senior cabin crew (42 years) & stellar at her job. I asked about the length of her new hire training. It was eight weeks safety, four weeks of international service training & two weeks initial inflight purser training. AA new hires have six weeks of training which includes only 30 minutes of service training. Period.
And folks wonder why Isom has put AA in the toilet.
Do these people read what they write? It’s getting to be the biggest joke on the internet the comments these pompous know-it-all’s make on absolutely every article
The public’s worst nightmare is being seated next to one of them.
AAll tAAlk and no AAction! They also promised swordfish and asparagus this fall in the Admiral’s Clubs at DFW. Instead, 4 months of pork meat preceded by 8 months of empanadas. Gross!
Hi-
Small note (not to diminish from the article- can delete comment/not post it).
Two small typos –
1. The article spells thta instead of that
2. United States should be capitalized vs united states
If AA is is shooting for improving preimum options, this could be nice, but only if they have the staffing of FAs to pull it off.
If you use the PHL Fladship lounge as a recent example, they are not on the right track. Did they not visit the Flagships in ORD, LAX, or, DFW? It’s already overcrowded (they open a conference room for overflow seating). Food options (other than using the awkward ordering system) are equal to worse than standard Admirals Clubs. It’s like they are not looking at offerings they have that work, or acknowledging the bandwidth for the FAs.
I wonder how quickly those mattresses will have stains or attract bedbugs on them. YUCK.