Category Archives for Airlines.
American Airlines introduced new domestic first class lunch and dinner options in November.
Mid-February they’re refreshing breakfast and also all three meals on regional jets. There are several changes to international snack items, and a couple of notable mentions about domestic economy food for sale.
Along with American Airlines fourth quarter and year-end results, the airline filed an expected fleet plan with the SEC. They’ve outlined the planes in their fleet at the end of 2018, along with where they’re expecting to be in each of 2019, 2020, and 2021.
During American Airlines’ earnings call this morning Cowen & Company’s Helane Becker asked airline President Robert Isom, “If you polled your customers what would they say is the #1 complaint about the airline, and what are you doing about it?”
The airline’s approach to unhappy customers – declining likelihood to recommend scores – appears to be to double down on the same approach they’ve been taking at the very time those scores have been falling.
American laid out their strategic objectives for 2019 to employees. It breaks down goals into financial performance, employees, and customers. Here’s what you can expect from the airline.
Effective May 9 Lufthansa is making changes to their award chart. You can book at old rates until that time. In general premium cabin awards are going up around 6% or so, which isn’t terrible relative to trends in much of the world and that the chart has been constant for some time.
Unlike Delta which no longer publishes award charts at all, and unlike United which doesn’t publish premium economy award pricing American has added premium economy to its published award chart pricing.
What’s more, unlike United which doesn’t seem to make premium economy saver awards available, American has made saver space for premium economy available at the get go.
American Airlines has launched a new award search tool. It runs alongside – rather than, at this point, being a replacement for – their existing award search.
The calendar feature isn’t available yet and the ability to filter results isn’t either. This new tool also does not allow you to book new Economy Web Special awards either.
American Airlines Group is earning a profit, albeit less than the minimum CEO Doug Parker promised they’d ever see. Whether or not they’ll ever lose money again though hinges on the success of their frequent flyer program — and whether they can recognize they aren’t offering a flight product that customers want to pay a premium for.
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
Two weeks ago I reported that American would launch award redemption for premium economy this month. Awards go live tomorrow (Thursday, January 24).
We will not see any change to upgrades at this time, or upgrade awards for premium economy. This new redemption option will be for American miles on American flights only — they will not enable redemption of premium economy seats on partners, and American’s partners won’t have access to premium economy awards either.
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 »
