At last Thursday’s American Airlines employee Q&A with management, someone asked American’s CEO Doug Parker how to talk to people who prefer Southwest over American ‘for their flexibility’.
Doug Parker told the employee “well you’ve got to find some new friends, first of all.” But he also did a fantastic job explaining how American thinks about its business, and its pricing strategies.
Diamond members who qualify on nights are going to like these changes. For anyone with Gold status they’re a nothing-burger (just know you’re on the hook for $2.50 a night if you redeem points in Malaysia). For others staying with Hilton gets less rewarding.
At American’s employee town hall last week a 26 year Dallas-based flight attendant asked if “any airline strives to be number one other than from the bottom line standpoint and for our shareholders?”
He said it “used to be nice” at the end of a flight “when people weren’t so crammed in” so he wanted to know “Do we strive to be number one at all or are we just striving to fill every seat and the bottom line?”
American Airlines sent out a press release today touting new service to Mexico, the Caribbean and Latin America. There are several new routes. There are new flights that didn’t make the release. But they didn’t talk about the service they’re eliminating…
At the beginning of February I shared the strong rumor that Air New Zealand would announce Auckland – Chicago non-stop. They’ve just done that, and alongside United has announced their San Francisco – Auckland will become year-round rather than seasonal.
Sunday’s Air France regional HOP flight A5-235 from Paris-Orly to Aurillac experienced a loud noise that could be heard inside the cabin. It turned out there were large cracks and holes in the plane’s fuselage.
Sleeping passengers were awakened by the noise on this 265 mile domestic flight.
Earlier this month American Airlines maintained that they hadn’t decided whether or not to put Boeing 757s with lie flat seats on domestic routes or not, even as their competitors roll out more domestic flights with lie flat seats up front.
It’s been expected for awhile that American would respond to this competition, and indeed they’ve taken some 757s off of international routes, but they wouldn’t say they’re adding them to the domestic schedule. Nonetheless they are now saying privately that this is what will ultimately happen.
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
Starting today EVA Air flies a Hello Kitty jet on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday Los Angeles – Taipei.
There are special boarding passes and baggage stickers, Hello Kitty crew uniforms, and the seats are transformed into Hello Kitty with headrest covers and pillows. Meal service features utensilves, cups, and napkins that are Hello Kitty. The lavatories are stocked with themed toilet paper.
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
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 »
