As part of its premium pivot, which I revealed exclusively in January, American Airlines has been ticking through a lot of quick wins, like announcing free wifi, bringing back second drink service on longer domestic flights and an end to collecting headsets from business class passengers an hour prior to arrival on long haul flights. They’re adding buy on board options to economy.
American Airlines Philadelphia Flagship Lounge, credit: American Airlines
The airline’s new Chief Customer Officer Heather Garboden appeared in a brief episode of the airline’s employee-focused “Tell Me Why” podcast.
Here’s a key line early in the brief episode,
I’ve been in this business for 20+ years, and for most of that time I think customer experience was really defined as running a reliable operation and getting you to your destination on-time and with your bags. Of course that’s by far the most important. In today’s environment that’s table stakes.
Reader James, who flagged the new episode for me, wrote “You at last got AA to call just being on time tablestakes!” Calling reliability important, but table stakes, has been my specific mantra about American Airlines for a long time.
- Customers will avoid flying you if you aren’t reliable.
- They aren’t the most reliable in any case.
- But to prefer you, you need to do more than that.
- American Airlines is a high cost airline. They need to earn a revenue premium to be successful. An that means offering a product that customers will pay more for.
Garboden says that 55% of customers are millennials and younger generations value experience. Premium demand is holding up, even in the current economic environment (airline executives in April earnings calls talked about domestic coach demand lagging).
I’d note that premium demand doesn’t just extend to premium cabins, which is why small investments in the coach product matter – like United’s stroopwafels, Illy coffee and buy on board program and also their mobile app that is available to everyone.
Henry Harteveldt, who very politely but also pointedly called out American Airlines in a mid-May episode of the Airlines Confidential podcast noted that Garboden comes out of the airline’s finance organization. On the one hand that’s a surprising place to look for someone to spearhead customer-facing improvements. On the other hand, maybe it’s necessary to have the credibility and speak the language of a finance-dominated organization that’s been built on never spending a dollar they don’t have to in he words of their CEO.
In contrast, United’s CFO says they’ll sell more tickets if they improve the quality of the chicken.
Really great American Airlines product elements like the new Philadelphia Flagship lounge, and upcoming premium cabins on the Boeing 787-9P and the (hopefully great) Airbus A321XLR are things that have been in the works for several years. They aren’t really attributable to this new premium focus.
American Airlines Business Class Suites, Credit: American Airlines
That’s why it was significant to hear in this interview that there’s a new customer experience vision and philosophy that’ll be rolled out in late summer or shortly thereafter.
- There is currently a “holistic review of our food and beverage program.” That’s a real reversal from the ‘more modern’ meal service where the airline hoped to make some pandemic cuts permanent.
- What’s more we can expect more lounge space – there really hasn’t been a new lounge pipeline in a long time.
Lounge constraints have been an issue in some of our airports, so we’re really focused on making sure that some of our busiest airports that we have the lounge space capacity for our customers.
Washington National Airport E Concourse Admirals Club
The new lounge template is really fantastic. While food and beverage offerings trail Delta and United, the spaces themselves are genuinely gorgeous. There’s no lounge where I enjoy the space as much as the Admirals Club on the E concourse at Washington National airport. I’d enjoy amenities in other lounges more, to be sure. At that airport go eat at the Capital One Landing! But then sit and work in that Admirals Club. More spaces like that would be game-changing.
In many ways I’m more excited for American Airlines than I have been at any time in the last dozen years. But a lot has to come to fruition to move from quick wins to sustainable improvement that translates into customer preference and economic performance. Still, this represents a huge shift in mindset from where the airline seemed to be a year ago.
Rudeness is by far the biggest problem pervading AA, especially at New York area airports. New York itself isn’t to blame because DL and UA don’t have this problem. Even TSA in NYC is more polite than AA. Rudeness happens to the most polite among us, see Ben Schlappig’s post this month from LGA.
If AA is to improve they need to identify and terminate their low performers. AA’s lowest performers are deplorably low. A commenter on OMAAT described the just desserts as being ‘clocked out cold.’
They’re using you language, Gary. Congrats! Let’s hope they follow through, but it’s a good sign.
Ridding themselves of Doug ‘DUI Dougie’ Parker, as well as Vasu Raja, went a long way toward improving the culture at AA.
@1990, good grief, buddy, I suppose imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but would you lay off the call for assault and battery? Not sure any of the staff at AA need to be ‘clocked out.’ Also, pro tip, I never use HTML. Better luck next time!
I got to experience the 2nd drink service on a SFO-PHL flight last Sunday. It was a “water” service. It didn’t seem like the flight attendants were happy to get up from reading their books and social media to do it either.
The infrequent flyer is clueless of how much is out of an airline’s control when it comes to an on time departure or arrival. That being said I find AA often sets it’s self up for failure with unrealistic turn times, lack of updating delays, gate agents that never seem to want to communicate as though they’re suppose to keep “secrets” from passengers, inability to recover operations in an efficient manner and no sense of urgency planning. Correcting some of this stuff is pretty simple.
Selling cheap upgrades has definitely diluted value of the product for me. EXP are left with group 1 boarding hoping for an exit seat. Also, after wait-listing for a systemwide, you are no longer given cash offers to upgrade. Sometimes they really make it cheap to get people to buy up, which means we get no offer and skipped.
I agree with Brian. I fly several times a month and the brand has diluted itself when it comes to being “premium”. I was able to get upgraded the other day, but that was because I was flying out of New Orleans at 5 am. Tried to upgrade with miles to Seattle and that didn’t happen because American would rather sell the seat for $97 than actually let loyal customers use their “loyalty” points.
It always makes me laugh when they advertise the 70,000 points for Barclay’s as “two round trip tickets” because I have yet to see any round trip tickets that are 35,000 points. If they want to attract actual loyal customers then the loyalty needs to flow both ways. Only reason I fly AA is because my home airport is Charlotte, but even with that I am eyeing Delta and just resigning myself to making connections.
American is cheap on their clubs, cheap on their planes, cheap with their rewards program. Just cheap all around. Now they want to convince us they are going to give a Ritz Carlton experience while not coming off their Days Inn budget? I’ll believe it when I see it.
How nice that airlines are trying to do better… yet… we should have an EU261 or Canada’s APPR equivalent air passenger rights legislation in the United States. I’ve posted on this many, many times. We, the passengers, should be compensated for excessive delays under an airlines’ control (like maintenance, staffing, etc., not severe weather, etc.) It does not bankrupt the airlines, and there is nominal cost passed on to consumers (see ULCCs in Europe, like Ryanair, that comply, yet still offer dirt-cheap fares.) No, private insurance alone is not enough (read the fine print on your policies, often requiring 72+ hours delay or more than 50% of trip impacted). I’ll admit, I do no expect the current administration to protect consumers, so it may be a while. Still, we deserve better.
Since Parker (Former CEO) is gone things will continue to improve at American Airlines. Parker was a disaster and brought American Airlines from first to worst.
AA been saying more of the right things recently but as with any airline the proof is in the pudding (yum).
@1992 (get it?) is a centipede among millipedes. *Checks tone, writing style, and content* You’re an imposter!
@John C – thank you for not cancelling me, LOL! I really should change my handle.
It’s nice to see AA start to wake up to the realties their choices have brought them to. Personally, I’m going let the captive flyers in DFW, MIA, CLT and PHL test things out and see where they shake out. If things are better in a couple of years I’ll give AA another try. It’s gonna take a while for AA to fix their lazy, hateful employees.
@ Gary –Now, AA just needs a bankruptcy to improve its balance sheet. Then AA can pay their rank & file employees better and invest more in product improvements.
AA needs to develop mindset of continuous investment in product development that involves a long-term strategy of ongoing innovation and improvement, rather than a one-time effort. This approach is vital for staying competitive in dynamic markets, keeping products relevant, and attracting both investors and customers. It ensures a company is not just responding to change but proactively shaping the future of its offerings. Dated lounges, poorly maintained seat, dates baggage technology etc. are truly inexcusable in this day and age if you want to be a premium airline.
I cringe when I have a New York or Chicago crew. Talk about rude! I’m originally from Chicago and go back a lot and fly in front. But jeesh, some of those Chicago crews are just downright nasty. I say some as there are good ones. But I live in Las Vegas now and am just over throwing the dice on if I will score a good crew or a lazy crew.
It never ceases to amaze me at how this clueless and rudderless airline continues to thresh around when it comes down to the basics of customer service and loyalty. Hoping someone whose background is running Cargo, and second level Eagle operations is the solution is yet another stab at fixing windmills. Any front-line employees who saw this babbling must have left shaking their heads. Sadly, they are used to it. Face it, as messed up it was with Parker running things, it’s only gotten worse. The only realistic solution is to “Soutwest” them.