Category Archives for Airlines.
American Airlines is bringing the HEAT to reduce the number of flights they cancel during major weather events. HEAT stands for Hub Efficiency Analytics Tool and they’ve been using it in Dallas Fort Worth (aka ‘Doesn’t Function Wet’) and Charlotte.
At an employee meeting this month Managing Director of the American Airlines Integrated Operations Center Steve Olson shared the details.
In a talk to American Airlines employees mid-month, Chief Operating Officer David Seymour described the new tool that the airline is using to manage gate operations in Dallas, which they’ll be tweaking for Charlotte as well.
They’re already making progress reducing the amount of time planes spend taxiing to gates and reducing delays as planes get into and out of gates. They’re even reducing the frequency that planes land and find their gates occupied. All of this adds up to less time on planes for customers, and fewer times that customers are late – which means fewer misconnections.
The once-stellar reputation of Delta Air Lines is falling as its operational reliability fades. After melting down last weekend, they’re doing the same thing again.
And Delta’s social media has had it with passengers and their impatience.
After announcing a revenue-based frequent flyer program that they’re calling a cryptocurrency they’re trying to raise money direct from the public in the form of an investment kickstarter, with the promise of free travel, elite benefits and… free booze for investors?
There are many reasons be be skeptical of the effort even if they didn’t seem to be incorporating the worst elements of businesses like Avatar Airlines which take a sixteen year old’s dream carrier off of airliners.net and marry it with an SEC criminal complaint waiting to happen.
The complimentary upgrade program has one oddball route exception. All Caribbean flights receive complimentary upgrades except one. It’s a 900 mile flight operated with an American Eagle Embraer E-175 regional jet.
Congress, at the behest of pilots unions and under the guise of safety after the Colgan Air accident, created significant barriers to becoming a pilot that were completely unrelated to the cause of that incident. Congress can fix this if they want air service to the smallest cities, precisely what gets cut as pilots are allocated to the most valuable trips, they should fix this.
Last week I flew Austin – Washington Dulles and a flight attendant told me American was planning to start flying Austin – Washington National. She was sure of it! I explained the perimeter rule to her and how American cannot fly Austin – Washington National without the Department of Transportation assigning ‘beyond perimeter’ slots that are created in law. It turns out she’d heard this news from… a passenger.
That said sometimes there are real tidbits of news, or at least interesting opinions. So I thought I’d pass along these ‘pilot tidbits’ shared to twitter by serial airline newsbreaker JonNYC along with context for what they mean.
American Airlines is launching a new long haul Pacific route, Dallas to Auckland, complementing Qantas Dallas – Sydney service. They won’t restart Los Angeles – Auckland, though, and they’re dropping the idea of Dallas – Tel Aviv. The long-expect Seattle – Bangalore flight, which was supposed to be American’s first return to India, won’t happen until (at least) summer 2023 if it comes to fruition.
There are several more route changes as American adjusts its international strategy as well.
Delta Air Lines used to have a reputation for almost never cancelling a mainline flight. Their unique selling proposition was their reliability. They accomplished this with a fleet of generally older aircraft, and built a maintenance capability so effective that it became a profit center.
Reliability isn’t a new problem for Delta, in fact Delta was first to begin having operational meltdowns in the Covid world. But as the halo wears off the wheels could begin to fall off of the SkyMiles program and have implications far beyond Delta too.
Last weekend the Delta Air Lines operation melted down. On Monday they cancelled 10% of their flights, and that’s with a bias towards delays – even overnight delays – to keep from running up their cancel statistics. They delayed many flights on top of this. Beset by confusion they even assigned a pilot to fly a Boeing 757 to Hawaii who wasn’t qualified to do so.
Now they’re cancelling more flights in advance, in order to reduce cancellations on the day of travel. And they’re starting now – for this weekend.
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 »
