In July American Airlines came in 15th in on-time performance for North American. They weren’t just behind Delta, Hawaiian and Alaska but also United and Southwest and even Spirit. Despite a company-wide push to depart exactly on-time over everything else, they don’t seem to be arriving on-time.
This has been an ongoing issue.
American Airlines will move out of terminal 2 in March 2020 and “commence operations in our new Terminal 1 and Boarding Area B”
However Alaska Airlines will not take over the Admirals Club space. The airport wants that for retail. Alaska wants to “leas[e] some of the build-back space for a potential lounge” and may be looking at a two-level club.
This is all good news for corporate customers, especially big customers of United. Outside of change fee and reaccommodation waivers, the benefits largely come at the expense of flyers who are not corporate customers. Luckily the extra juice corporate customers are getting here is very much at the margin, a Platinum member’s upgrade will still trump a Gold member for instance.
More seats that require a fee isn’t surprising, but it does make buying up from United’s uncompetitive basic economy that much less appealing. Non-corporate leisure customers should increasingly consider American, Delta, or Southwest.
Frequent flyer programs create tremendous value for airlines. They’re highly profitable, and have been for years. When United filed for bankruptcy it was said to have to continue flying to support the underlying credit card business. The airline’s first call after seeing the judge each time was to Jamie Dimon.
The issuer of the United co-brand credit card provided debtor-in-possession financing to United, and co-led bankruptcy exit financing. As with other airlines, United received hundreds of millions of dollars in loans backed by future mileage sales to provide liquidity during the financial crisis.
New York JFK airport is a disaster. Governor Cuomo’s $10 billion plan won’t begin to fix it. The people who work there are bad enough but the physical plant itself is irredeemable.
This story is among the most egregious I’ve heard and as it proceeds it just gets worse and worse.
Debbie Cardarelli is suing American Airlines for more than $1 million over the experience her now deceased husband had last year as the two flew home from Miami to Rochester, New York via Philadelphia in March 2017. As they boarded their connecting segment to Rochester they were told the aircraft, an Embraer ERJ-145, wouldn’t have room onboard for their carry on and they’d have to gate check it.
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American Airlines is having trouble getting a mechanics contract done. They blame themselves for giving mechanics a mid-contract pay raise, so there’s not as much money for mechanics to get by agreeing to a contract. Mechanics are unhappy with the potential for the airline to outsource jobs.
But what if you didn’t even need mechanics to repair planes? The FAA hasn’t approved this, but televangelist Kenneth Copeland claims that G-d healed the corrosion on his private jet.
At the outset of an employee forum last week American Airlines President Robert Isom declared, “we’re planning the airline in a world where oil be at $75 a barrel forever.”
Here’s what he says that new reality means for the ariline.
Say that you wanted to stay at the Park Hyatt Vendome in Paris over Christmas. The hotel has rooms for sale, but there are no award rooms available for December 22-26.
You can set an alert for a Park Queen or for the Twin which are bookable with points. Or perhaps you already have a room booked at the hotel and what you are looking to do is use points or a confirmed suite upgrade for a suite — but the standard suite isn’t available. Set an alert for the Park Suite King.
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 »
