Category Archives for Airlines.
Airlines fight tooth and nail to operate on time. When they’re lucky they push back a few minutes early. It isn’t often you see flights leaving 5 to 7 hours before they’re scheduled to depart. However a unique situation in Santiago, Chile is causing American Airlines to leave that much earlier than planned.
Are these recent reports from American Airlines international first class really that surprising, when there’s so little emphasis on what service delivery for premium customers looks like at American?
British Airways flight crew have a reputation for being some of the rowdiest in the world, and ‘things to tend to happen’ during Singapore layovers (Johannesburg, Las Vegas, Bangkok, and Nairobi are also well known trouble spots).
Over the summer it was a game of naked spin the bottle that got out of hand in Singapore. Two years ago it was crew running naked through hotel corridors, stealing fish.
Now during a Singapore layover “[s]ome of the crew got plastered, allegedly using drinks smuggled off the BA in-flight trolley” and this led to an altercation in the lobby and a suspension.
I criticize many of the decisions that American Airlines leadership have made. They’ve managed to anger shareholders, employees, and customers alike. While racking up more debt and worse operating statistics than competitors they’ve also re-started their project to degrade the domestic product.
There’s one area though that they’ve performed at an outstanding level.
Mark Sanford is running for President in the Republican primary against Donald Trump. He is best known for disappearing for six days while serving as Governor of South Carolina. He had told staff he was hiking the Appalachian Trail. He didn’t return calls from staff, or check in with his family on Father’s Day.
When Singapore Airlines gets media for its catering operations, or for its business class product (or first class!) it’s reaching potential customers, sure, but it’s reaching a broader audience that may never fly Singapore Airlines and may never visit Singapore. However it’s projecting the image of Singapore itself as high quality.
A significant amount of public perception of Singapore the country seems to come from Singapore the airline, even among people who have never flown the airline (or who fly it and merely connect through Changi airport).
American told customer service managers this week by memo that “[t]he FAA issued a notification to American Airlines indicating [they] are failing to comply with [their]r carry-on baggage program parameters.”
In response the airline “committed to increase the number of self-audits at each mainline station.”
American Airlines announced yesterday that their mobile app will prompt customers when their flight is boarding. That’s something that Delta, United, and Southwest have already offered.
There’s some confusion in the blogosphere over how this feature works.
Qatar Airways CEO Akbar al-Baker, the biggest troll in aviation, gave an interviewing suggesting American Airlines got outmaneuvered by Delta, that he thought their CEO would get replaced, and that he’s still considering leaving oneworld over bad relations with American.
Southwest Airlines is eliminating expiration of points, raising the requirements for the Companion Pass, and announcing that starting in 2021 they’ll collect any changes in TSA fees and airport facilities charges when elites use free standby.
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 »
