Category Archives for Airlines.
Early in Doug Parker’s tenure the company’s market cap reached $37 billion. It’s now just over $8 billion. At the airline’s Media and Investor Day in 2017, the CEO famously declared that they would ‘never lose money again.’ Whereas their major competitors’ stock has returned to trading at pre-pandemic levels, American’s returned to its pre-pandemic decline.
Under the contact form to submit an inquiry to American, when you choose AAdvantage account service, you can now select ‘status match’.
I’m genuinely struck by the shift in United Airlines CEO Scoott Kirby since taking the reins at that airline. He was President of US Airways and American Airlines under Doug Parker, and known as a straight spreadsheet guy. At US Airways he wouldn’t even add inflight wifi until he could actually see customers booking away from the airline because they didn’t have it.
United is still careful with cost, and their new premium image often outstrips the reality of the product and experience, but they make investments in customer experience others aren’t making and take risks for payoffs that will be harder to quantify. And it’s working out for the airline.
One week ago, air traffic control screwed up in San Diego, clearing two Southwest Airlines flights onto the same runway at the same time, leading to a high-speed aborted takeoff – but which could have been much worse.
American Airlines won a $9.4 million verdict against Skiplagged for copyright infringement. That’s being reported as a huge win for American, and vindication of their fight against throwaway ticketing. It is not.
American Airlines flight 2587 from Chicago O’Hare to Austin had a near-miss with a 1979 Cessna R182 that passed it with just about 400 feet of vertical separation on Wednesday.
The American Boeing 737 had been alerted to the traffic in the area, but lost it descending into fog on final approach. They responded to a traffic collision avoidance system (TCAS) alert as the Cessna flew directly into their approach path, almost right below.
That play was created by Alaska’s acquisition of Hawaiian Airlines, and won’t last. I spoke with Alaska’s Vice President of Loyalty, Alliances, and Sales Brett Catlin about next year’s Mileage Plan program changes, and I took the opportunity to ask about their co-brand credit card relationship going forward, now that Alaska Airlines has acquired Hawaiian.
People queue up to board. They rush the gate. They try to board long before it’s their turn, even though they’ll be fine with overhead space usually unless they’re among the last on the plane.
Airlines made this game. They can’t do simple back-to-front boarding because they sell priority boarding, sell first class, and reward customers with status.
Over the summer the FAA launched a safety audit of Southwest Airlines. This came after the airline came within feet of the water while still miles from Tampa less than a month after another of the airline’s 737s descended to just over 500 feet while still 9 miles out from the Oklahoma City airport. In April, a Southwest Airlines flight in Hawaii came within 400 feet of the Pacific Ocean. Then in June a Southwest Airlines flight took off from a closed runway Southwest has shared internally some of the issues that FAA inspectors have flagged during the Certificate Holder Evaluation Process Safety Audit. I suppose some of these are better than the pilots who spent a flight watching video feed of passengers in the lavatory? The airline declined comment since “[t]he CHEP is still…
Alaska Airlines has announced changes – nearly all improvements – to its Mileage Plan program for 2025. I spoke with Alaska’s Vice President of Loyalty, Alliances, and Sales Brett Catlin about the effort – which he calls a “phase one.”
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 »
