Category Archives for Airlines.
Tthe time and transportation cost to get a $3 pretzel will probably cost more people more than $3. But free pretzels from Delta and American Express!
You’re going to see a lot about the American Airlines MD80 this week. Between the plane operating its final commercial flight for American on Wednesday — flight AA80 — and the airline running a ferry flight to the desert with a plane full of media on board, this is a major ‘event’. However I’m not sure that it should be.
Here’s how to make American Airlines great. Simply making American President Robert Isom CEO doesn’t get you there. Hiring a new CEO to appease financial analysts and Wall Street doesn’t get you there. Parker actually has the humility to pull this off. He just hasn’t shown the depth of vision yet.
I wrote the other day in a Forbes.com piece about a bit of a feud between American Airlines and United over the best approach to the environment, the CEO of American calling out United’s biofuel efforts as being largely meaningless compared to American’s investment of newer, more modern and fuel efficient aircraft.
It turns out Parker is right on the science.
August 14 Singapore Airlines made a huge change to the ability to waitlist for award tickets. All wait list requests are cancelled 14 days prior to travel. There are no more last minute wait lists.
Singapore says the new rules ‘promote certainty’ and that’s certainly true. You know you cannot clear a wait list close to departure, because Singapore won’t allow it.
But why did they make this change?
In the second quarter American Airlines wrote down the value of its investment in China Southern airlines. In response to a question about financials, the airline told employees “Non-operating special items principally included $52 million of mark-to-market net unrealized losses primarily associated with the company’s equity investment in China Southern Airlines.” $52 million would equate to 26% of the original $200 million investment in China Southern made just two years earlier.
The airline is beloved, though much of the credit they get is based on past efforts. JetBlue isn’t nearly as good as it once was, they even led last year’s checked bag fee increase. They’ve squeezed seats, just not as much as American, Delta, and United. And their Achilles heel is operational reliability,
Six new cost cuts continue the multi-year quest to become merely ‘a little less bad’ than competitors continues apace.
Yesterday I shared a leaked Delta memo showing that the airline would be giving 4% raises to flight attendants and ground employees. In addition the airline said employees could expect bigger bonuses. That’s big news this Labor Day weekend.
The authenticity of the memo was being called into question in some quarters because another (obviously fake) memo was circulating earlier in the week promising 9% raises. However the real memo is.. real… and Delta employees get news of a 4% raise for Labor Day.
Currently American Airlines changes up their domestic first class snack baskets every six months. I don’t love most of what they offer, and boy the contents get boring after awhile. The last changeover was April 10.
While I don’t think the new choices starting October 9 are better the good news is that the airline will begin rotating out contents every two months beginning with this next refresh. Here’s what’ll be in the new baskets.
Ground and flight attendant employees get a 4% raise. Employees who receive merit-based pay adjustments will have a 4% increase in the total compensation pool available to them. And bonuses are expected to be higher, too.
Just as importantly the airline communicates that it is investing in solving pain points in jobs, and employees are reminded that they’re empowered to address the most important issues at the airline (safety). It’s a well-written memo.
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 »
