Category Archives for Airlines.
At an employee town hall event at New York LaGuardia on Tuesday, held as the elimiantion of the Northeast Shuttle was being announced, Chief Revenue Officer Vasu Raja explained the decision. He offered that the things that made the Shuttle different were outdated, like newspapers (Covid and the internet), free drinks (changing norms), and rear-door deplaning (changes to airports).
Singapore Airlines sweats all the small details, not just the mechanical ones. They built a model Airbus A380 using manila envelopes and the seats inside the plane even reclined. Tag line: “It’s the small details that make giants in the sky.” Bingo.
Which brings me to meal service on American Airlines.
American Airlines has more debt than competitors and financially underperforms the industry. It’s had unhappy investors, unhappy employees, and unhappy customers. In fall 2019, after American lost its joint venture with South American megacarrier LATAM to Delta, there was a lot of speculation that management would be ousted. There was a low-level leadership reshuffle, but no one at the top left.
Rewarding customers who spend more on tickets isn’t the same as rewarding customers who are most profitable to an airline company, let alone incentivizing customers towards becoming more profitable.
Three years ago the CEO of Singapore Airlines described what they would do with their new first class on board the upcoming Boeing 777-9 as a “quantum leap” in their design offering.
The cheapest way for many people to get access to American Airlines clubs is with the premium Citibank co-brand AAdvantage Executive card. It has a $450 annual fee and comes with membership. What’s more, additional cardholders have no fee and can use the card for entry including inviting two guests. You can get 10 additional cards, so with a total of 11 cards that’s 33 total admits.
But there’s a cheaper way, even, to get this card.
The value of frequent flyer miles is something I’ve been calculating for years. I think what makes my approach different is I lay out the theory behind my valuations, I explain a lot of the moving pieces, and I present a comparison between my valuations and the valuations others are giving. I first laid this out the value of frequent flyer miles in 2014 and then updated values in 2016, 2017 and 2019. I skipped 2020 due to the pandemic but a tremendous amount has changed. Air Canada launched a new program with the same name (raising redemption prices but eliminating fuel surcharges), Delta and United devalued partner awards more than once, Capital One launched transferrable points mostly at 1:1, and new program Bilt entered the transferable points space – to name just a few…
Southwest passengers arriving in Phoenix were greeted by a serenading gate agent, caught on video and shared to social media. Sound on, “Going through corona is so dang cruel, seems like a time that we made a change, ya I’m feeling the strain…Give me airline with heart and soul, one that takes some time to sing some rock ‘n roll…”
“Drift Away” has been covered by Michael Bolton and Uncle Kracker, but this Southwest gate agent is the airline’s Weird Al Yankovic and parodies songs with his own airline-related lyrics.
American Airlines melted down at the end of October without enough cabin crew to work flight. This followed a meltdown in June caused by not having enough Boeing 737 pilots. United Airlines sent an email to all its customers throwing shade at them, and suggesting they book United for the holidays.
In order to prevent a repeat of the October flight attendant debacle, American Airlines is throwing money at the problem (err, at the flight attendants).
American Airlines customers may find themselves on a regional jet with rows of seats missing. Here’s the front of the cabin of an American Eagle Embraer ERJ-175, registration N502SY, operated by SkyWest. This is a new aircraft, just delivered in August 2021.
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 »
