Airlines

Category Archives for Airlines.

American Could Give All Passengers Seat Back Entertainment – For Less Than 1/3 the Cost Overrun On Their New Headquarters

by Gary Leff

airline cabin
Jun 11 2019

American Airlines is reportedly spending $1 billion on their new corporate campus and that’s apparently up from a previously-reported $350 million. It’s possible that’s not an apples-to-apples comparison. American has been tight-lipped about the project’s costs. However it fairly clearly represents a project that’s grown substantially more expensive.

Just keep that number in mind for a moment as we walk through the economics of American’s decision not to offer seat back entertainment for domestic passengers, instead streaming content to passenger phones.

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Captain Freddy’s Final Flight: What Happens When an American Airlines Pilot Retires?

by Gary Leff

pilot
Jun 11 2019

In the movie Up in the Air Sam Elliott plays the chief pilot at American Airlines. He appears in their advertising, and meets customers on board when they hit ten million frequent flyer miles. My own lifetime counter at AAdvantage is only rounding towards 4 million, but I’m pretty sure that doesn’t really happen in real life. One way to see the chief pilot, though, is to retire after a career flying for American.

On May 26, Captain Fred Swaffer flew his last flight for American after 33 years with the airline.

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American Airlines Serves 16 Month Old Food

by Gary Leff

airline food
Jun 10 2019

American airlines has cut back on their special meals. Three of the meal choices – asian vegetarian, hindu, and muslim – are actually the same thing, diabetic meals now get chicken instead of beef, and five of their special meals now “receive standardized and frozen pre-prepared” entrees with a “one year frozen shelf life.” Yum!

But if one year shelf life is supposed to be the cutoff, how come a reader was served a vegetarian meal made in February 2018?

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American Airlines Refuses to Lend Part to Air Italy, Forces 35 Hour Delay For Spite

by Gary Leff

qatarplane
Jun 09 2019

This past Saturday, Air Italy’s flight IG938 from San Francisco to Milan went mechanical. American Airlines had the part Air Italy needed, but they wouldn’t sell it. The scheduled 7:10 p.m. flight didn’t actually depart until early Monday morning,

American says they needed the part themselves, and an airline has to be “an approved carrier and have a partnership with us to borrow parts, and we don’t have a partnership with Air Italy.” In other words precisely because American is in a spat with Air Italy they won’t list the airline as an approved partner, and won’t lend parts.

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Fund for Families of Victims of Pan Am 103 Will Give All its Money to a Park

by Gary Leff

crashed plane
Jun 07 2019

The Lockerbie Air Disaster Fund, one of the charities set up ‘provide support and assistance in a wide variety of ways to those affected in the disaster’ received donations totaling 2.4 million British pounds.

In 1991 there was 235,000 pounds left, which was transferred to a new Lockerbie Trust. Families of victims sought access to these funds, but they were rebuffed.

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Rumor: American Buying Airbus 321XLR Aircraft for Europe Flights

by Gary Leff

american plane
Jun 07 2019

There’s speculation that American Airlines could announce an order for Airbus A321XLRs at the Paris Air Show, which runs later this month June 17-23. The idea would be to replace Boeing 757s, to allow flights to smaller European cities from New York and Philadelphia.

The narrowbody aircraft could even be outfitted with lie flat direct aisle access business class seats.

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