Category Archives for Airlines.
American Airlines has a private check-in for top customers at facility at Chicago O’Hare, LAX, London Heathrow, Miami and New York JFK called Flagship First Check-in. But because this is an airline, the rules around who can use it are complicated.
This summer British Airways doubled its award availability commitment. Each airline opens award space on flights on its own schedule, if they open awards at all. British Airways is unique in promising to make awards available on every flight when the schedule loads.
But they don’t promise first class awards. They used to be good about offering them. Now first class space is almost non-existent.
As President Robert Isom explained it to flight attendants in an internal meeting this week, American Airlines would like to modify Airbus A319s and add more first class seats. Just 8 seats up front isn’t enough to sell on many of the routes where the aircraft gets deployed. He’d also like to add bigger overhead bins. A decision point may come next year.
Brady Byrnes, who is American’s Vice President of Inflight, explained at an internal meeting this week (a recording of which was reviewed by View From The Wing) that the carrier is prioritizing which flights get basic amenities.
ConciergeKey is American’s revenue-based top level, given to very high revenue customers and those who influence significant business for the airline.
They got priority for upgrades and other waitlists and have myriad other benefits including use of the airline’s business class Flagship lounges when flying domestically and are again being given tokens to visit American’s exclusive Flagship First Dining, too.
At the start of Wednesday’s United Airlines earnings call, CEO Scott Kirby outlined four reasons he believes United is positioned to win relative to competitor airlines.
American Airlines is known for being particularly stingy with international business class award space on its own flights. I redeem AAdvantage miles more than any other airline currency, but almost always for flights on their partners. So when there’s good space for valuable awards on American Airlines itself, I try to highlight it.
At a town hall event in Miami on Thursday, American Airlines President Robert Isom took questions from employees. If video of the event was posted internally, it was apparently taken down quickly. However I’ve been able to review the discussion, and every single question and challenge was on the pending vaccination requirement for employees of federal contractors.
My impression watching Isom matches what I’ve heard elsewhere: that management is clearly scared for their operation, knowing that they have so many thousands of unvaccinated employees and that passions are running so hot.
Qantas announced the release of ‘millions’ of award seats as Australia re-opens. So far Australians are expected to be able to leave their country next month (and return!) with rules for what they must do on arrival varying by state. There’s no announced timeline for visitors to come to Australia, but there’s reason to be hopeful.
The American Airlines flight attendants union is telling employees that unlike United, American will offer a way for those who obtain a religious or medical exemption to vaccination to continue working.
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 »
