Category Archives for Airlines.
American Airlines no longer sends membership kits to frequent flyers when they earn AAdvantage elite status. This means that elites are no longer sent a membership card, luggage tags, or employee recognition certificates. Instead the airline tells newly minted elite members that AAdvantage is “a fully digital experience.”
However they will still allow elite members to call and request certificates to give to employees for ‘above and beyond’ service.
It’s been two years since they announced this was coming, and all they’ve done so far is change the program name and announced points will no longer expire, but Virgin is trying their hand at a coalition loyalty program across the group’s brands. There’s also a double points promotion for Virgin flights.
American Airlines is primarily a domestic airline. They’re smaller internationally than Delta and United. Their focus has been building domestic connections between the middle of the country and also the Sun Belt.
Like all the other major airlines they have a number of planes parked, especially widebody planes that fly internationally. Talking to pilots last week about how they’ll grow their route network again and deploy these widebodies, American’s Senior Vice President and Chief Revenue Officer Vasu Raja offered four principles.
This week a photo of a United Airlines flight attendant not wearing a mask went fairly viral, because airlines have been kicking two year old children off of planes for lack of masks. Surely the ones tasked with ensuring compliance should do so themselves.
What should a passenger do if a flight attendant isn’t wearing a mask? It’s reasonable to be both concerned for health, but also reticent to challenge flight crew out of fear of being removed from the aircraft or having law enforcement called.
In mid-February, just as the coronavirus pandemic was gaining steam, American Airlines announced a partnership with Alaska Airlines and plans to serve Seattle – Bangalore, India. It was to be American’s return to India, and the first U.S.-Bangalore non-stop.
The flight’s launch as been delayed to next year, but American Airlines President Robert Isom told his airline’s pilots last week that they’re still committed to it – even though United Airlines has just announced plans to fly San Francisco – Bangalore and will likely pick up most of the non-stop tech corridor business, and they’re planning to launch their flight before American begins its service.
Delta is out with changes to its SkyMiles program that are positives for members. They’re building on elimination of domestic change fees by exempting award changes and redeposits as well, excluding Basic Economy fares, and extending airline club memberships and credit card companion tickets and travel credits.
According to top American AIrlines executives there’s “a lot more consumer willingness to travel especially in the South and Midwest.” These are “small and medium-sized business[es]” in “cities that are smaller cities, Tulsa or Oklahoma City” rather than “places like New York or San Francisco which were the big meccas of large corporate travel.”
Consulting, financial services and entertainment aren’t traveling. Factory and warehouse businesses are.
Rachel Starr Davis was fleeing a hurricane in Florida last week, connecting to American Airlines flight 5595 from Charlotte to Manchester, New Hampshire. Before pushback a flight attendant approached her and asked how old her son is.
The two year old boy wouldn’t wear a mask, despite in his mother’s words ‘begging, bribing, pleading’ but he screamed and cried as she “tried to hold him and put the mask on.”
In late May American Airlines CEO Doug Parker had a personal interaction with a Southwest Airlines flight attendant over race that went viral after he flew the airline and was carrying the book White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard For White People To Talk About Racism which had been recommended by a board member months earlier, but that he’d put aside distracted by the coronavirus crisis.
He and his wife continue that conversation.
American Airlines President Robert Isom spoke to a group of pilots last week. In his prepared remarks he laid out the carrier’s position on Black Lives Matter, as a way of framing controversy over the airline letting crewmembers wear Black Lives Matter pins.
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 »
