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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American Airlines: Our New Flight Attendants Lack the Training to Provide Good Service

airline food
Nov 19 2018

At the most recent employee question and answer session with American Airlines CEO Doug Parker, a flight attendant asked about the airline’s inflight product — she hears from premium customers that the product United and Delta offer are better, and she worries because new American Airlines flight attendants aren’t getting training in service, and ‘half’ of flight attendants don’t follow the service standards that do exist.

Ok, she did more than ask about the product. She looked right at her CEO and said American’s service standards “suck compared to United and Delta.”

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American’s CEO Focuses on Operation Over Customers Because He Believes That’s What Customers Want

airline seats
Nov 18 2018

American Airlines CEO Doug Parker says their relentless focus on exact on time departures is what customers want, even though it means that upgrades don’t get processed, flights don’t get catered, and customers are forced to gate check bags unnecessarily.

Airlines that achieve operational reliability do it by getting the right resources in place to accomplish everything that’s necessary to get planes out on time, not by requiring employees to skip steps and inconvenience customers in order to achieve operational goals.

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