Category Archives for Airlines.
At the end of September I revealed that American will be squeezing more seats into their Airbus A321 fleet, not just their Boeing 737s as well as adding more first class seats.
They accomplish this with less distance between seats, less padding for each seat, and smaller lavatories.
ConciergeKey is American’s revenue-based top level, given to very high revenue customers and those who influence significant business for the airline.
It’s the ‘super secret’ level that George Clooney had in Up in the Air. The program began mostly for corporate travel buyers and folks in their old VIP program back in 2007, and gradually expanded to individual high revenue customers.
It’s become all too common to believe that the only things customers care about are schedule and price. This idea has been at the core of the ‘race to the bottom’ where legacy airlines strive to become more like ultra low cost carriers and then fail to understand why customers are unhappy.
Now that British Airways parent company IAG is telling investors that a quarter of the buying decision is based on brand, can we put to rest the notion that what customers think of their travel experience doesn’t matter for a full service high cost airline?
In the least surprising move in the history of earth United announced that the are going to require a same day boarding pass for travel on United, another Star Alliance airline, or “a contracted partner” in order to access their clubs.
United no longer needed to treat its customers better, since competitors won’t. As with Delta and American, United’s lounge access is really sold on a subscription basis rather than being a ‘club membership’.
British Airways doesn’t have a competitive business class product. On their Boeing 777s seating is eight across, middle seats are especially intimate and passengers in the window climb over the feet of their seat opponents.
We now know a little more about what’s to come for business class, first class, and even the direction of how many seats they’re going to offer.
The President of United Airlines thinks airfares should be twice as expensive as they are today. United’s CEO Oscar Munoz takes things a step further: paying United Airlines more is good for you.
His argument is that more money for the airline means more money to invest in the product. You as the customer benefit even if you “don’t always understand.” He has things exactly backwards.
I appreciate that American still has an award chart that they are willing to publish. I appreciate that they mostly stick to it. However they stick to it only as long as there isn’t an exception, that they do not tell customers about.
Back in April British Airways parent company IAG acquired just under 5% of Norwegian and started talks to acquire the discount carrier. I assumed that acquire meant smother it so that the airline wouldn’t keep depressing transatlantic fares, especially out of cities like London.
Chairman Willie Walsh addressed a Norwegian deal at their investor day.
Delta hasn’t been nearly as aggressive buying new aircraft as American. Instead of replacing their Boeing 767-400 fleet they’re actually going to invest heavily in it. In fact the 767-400s are going to get Delta One Suites (business class seats with doors).
Last month Delta CEO Ed Bastian answered an ‘Ask Ed Anything’ employee question about Boeing 767-400s interior refurbishments starting this winter.
VietJet’s CEO became Southeast Asia’s first self-made female billionaire. The airline is a discount carrier flying narrowbody aircraft mostly domestically although with several routes now into Asia.
Five years ago the airline was fined 20 million Dong over unapproved inflight entertainment. It wasn’t a problem with the installation of a seatback video system. Instead, 5 bikini-clad candidates in a local beauty contest performed a dance onboard the airline’s inaugural flight to Nha Trang.
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 »
