Category Archives for Airlines.
Major airlines today seem more worried that some member, somewhere might actually benefit from a promotion than they seem to care the promotion actually incentivizing customer behavior.
American Airlines has had catering issues they’ve blamed on pandemic unemployment and other supply chain disruptions. Their goal now, according to the airline’s managing director of onboard dining, is to have “at the very minimum enough water to go to everyone.”
American Airlines customers, especially, should like flying JetBlue which offers more legroom, seat back entertainment, free wifi and a business class product (on routes where it’s offered) with relatively great seats, food, and friendly service.
However the actual partnership – as experienced by passengers – is quite broken. Several customers, based in both Boston and New York, have shared the problems they’ve faced.
Everyone knew that 2021 would be an odd year. It might not be a total loss, like 2020, where American like most everyone else just extended status. However business travel hadn’t returned in the first half of the year in a meaningful way, and much of long haul international travel remained out of reach. Customers who normally made their status on international business class tickets just weren’t doing so, yet no one wanted to lose these customers when their business returned.
With how easy they’ve made it to keep status, the airline now needs to encourage people to actually fly the airline.
R&B singer Lyfe Jennings flew American Airlines and recorded his last interaction with the airline as he boarded his flight, being asked whether there would be any issues on the flight – whether he was going to be a troublemaker – after, he says, he was continually questioned over boarding as a first class passenger. He believes the airline’s employees were skeptical that he belonged in first class because he’s black.
Two quick stories about customer focus help me put in context a conversation that’s been happening on LinkedIn among airline executives.
A passenger had to be removed from an American Airlines flight to Charlotte over their refusal to wear a mask. So far, just like any other day in travel since 75% of airline incidents reported to the FAA this year have involved masks.
But the pilot of this flight followed the passenger’s ejection with a speech to those on board in which he declared himself God on the aircraft as he implored everyone to follow the rules.
After the threat was determined to be a hoax, and the problem passenger detained, the rest of the passengers had to hold their hands on their heads for nearly an hour. They couldn’t take their hands down, because the captain didn’t say Simon Says. And everyone was held in the terminal while the aircraft was searched on arrival. Nothing was found.
Singapore Airlines flies from Houston to Manchester, U.K. and from there on to Singapore. This is the flight that used to stop in Moscow. Operated by an Airbus A350, award availability is wide open in business class from November through end of schedule.
Plane Food Simulator 2021 is a free online game where you… try to eat food on a plane.
This isn’t hard because of all the Covid Cutbacks, and your airline just isn’t serving food. You choose your meal type (you can even pick a Japanese meal!) but you have to deal with turbulence and other challenges along the way.
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 »
