Category Archives for Airlines.
Last week American Airlines held ‘Crew News’ conversations between executives and its pilot and flight attendant groups. They featured both introductory remarks by Chairman and CEO Doug Parker, along with questions by front line employees answered by Parker and members of management brought in as subject matter experts. A recording of these meetings was shared with View From The Wing.
Here are 10 insights from these discussions regarding American Airlines strategy.
At an American Airlines employee meeting last week, a pilot asked CEO Doug Parker why the company needed to interject itself into political issues – like state election law – to please people in media and on twitter. After all, customers fly American to get from point A to point B, not for its position on voting rules, so why upset people on the other side?
There’s a future for international first class, and it’s sooner than many had thought. Singapore Airlines had zeroed out first class from sale through March 2022, but now they’re bringing it back in June.
Singapore Airlines had stopped selling first class last year because it wasn’t clear which routes would see a plane that offers a Suites or First Class cabin again, and when.
Last week American converted 5 Boeing 787-8s on order to larger 787-9s and deferred those to 2023 when 25 of those aircraft are slated to begin delivery.
Late in the week CEO Doug Parker gave additional context on the carrier’s thinking on future aircraft orders at an internal employee event, a recording of which was reviewed by View From The Wing. Since American has just retired planes, when they’re ready to grow they’re going to need to buy new planes again since the ones they have on order larger just replace aircraft they’ve gotten rid of.
Indian airline Vistara was banned from flying to Hong Kong for two weeks earlier this month after bringing in passengers who tested positive for Covid-19 on two separate flights.
While four passengers initially tested positive on April 4th’s Delhi – Hong Kong flight, 25 people on that flight have now tested positive.
Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al Baker calls British Airways a ‘two out of ten low cost carrier.’
This isn’t mere trash talking by a rival, Al Baker’s Qatar Airways owns a 25% stake in British Airways parent company IAG and is the carrier’s largest owner – so it’s an admission against interests.
As American Airlines removes the very last of its seat back video screens on Boeing 737 aircraft United Airlines has shared internally that it will go in the opposite direction.
United was already adding seat back video screens to new Boeing 737s and now will retrofit older aircraft so that passengers have screens at their seats, according to an internal video shared with employees.
After paying flight attendants not to work during the pandemic, thanks to government subsidies, American Airlines plans to fly more than 90% of the seats they flew domestically in the summer of 2019 this summer, and 80% of the seats they flew internationally.
American recalled all of their flight attendants from furlough to work these flights Even then that’s not enough.
Delta Air Lines has plenty of cash. They never furloughed any employees. Travel is recovering and they’re expecting to return to profitability this summer. They’re even making large bonus payments to management employees.
Against this backdrop, Hunter Keay from Wolfe Research asked Delta CEO Ed Bastian during the airline’s earnings call whether they would turn down ‘PSP3’ the third government airline bailout that will offer them about $3 billion in exchange for continuing to pay employees through September.
Mary Schlangenstein who covers airlines for Bloomberg asked CEO Ed Bastian during Delta’s earnings call about Southwest’s no-notice 6.5% devaluation of Rapid Rewards points yesterday and whether they’d considering doing something similar.
Bastian offered SkyMiles as a contrast to Southwest, “we’re not considering that, and we’re very excited about the value [of the SkyMiles program].” Wait, wut?
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 »
