Category Archives for Airlines.
There was a real buzz tonight at New York JFK. A JetBlue flight, 1623 to Los Angeles, went silent. Media picked this up, and there was little to no information about what was happening. Speculation abounded, fearing the worst.
Prior to the plane going into service, and before American began retrofitting its fleet with this new interior, the airline’s CEO Doug Parker hadn’t even tried the product. And it told me that domestic passenger experience isn’t central to the product the airline believes it is offering.
He now at least says he’s seen the lavatory, though he still hasn’t flown on a plane that has it. He also doesn’t seem to know that his airline has an ongoing effort to reconfigure its existing domestic fleet with more seats and smaller planes, in fact he denies it outright.
Right now there’s great Air France award space for four or more passengers New York – Paris in both directions in February and March. Pretty much every day. And that’s not all.
You’ll note plenty of New York – Amsterdam space. That’s KLM. New York – Madrid is generally Air Europa. There are several Delta flights offering four or more seats as well — such as London, Zurich, Barcelona, Dublin, Frankfurt, and Lisbon.
American Airlines now offers free drinks in Main Cabin Extra seating. First class and Main Cabin Extra also have reserved signs on the overhead bins, though this isn’t something flight attendants are expected to enforce and I watch customers walking to the back of coach storing their backs up front all the time.
Last week at an employee town hall a flight attendant brought up to the carrier’s CEO Doug Parker that they’re having difficulty delivering the free drink benefit to customers in extra legroom seats.
American Airlines hasn’t fully integrated its operations for the amount of beverages they’ll stock on board. American Airlines used to actually stock fewer beverages than US Airways. And they reduced beverage catering in Phoenix down to the old American Airlines levels.
Fortunately that’s being reversed and come “late August” we’ll start seeing more beverages catered in first class across the system.
American Airlines CEO defends flight attendants with their noses in their phones, but contends American has “the best [flight attendant] instructors in the world, getting the best training and are learning how to be great at customer service.”
American Airlines flight AA383 from Chicago to Miami caught fire in late 2016 as it was preparing for takeoff.
Somehow I never saw one of the most incredible videos of the event: dash cam from an emergency truck responding to the incident.
American’s regional carrier PSA, which it owns, cancelled 3000 flights in a week when their computer systems in Dayton, Ohio melted down.
American Airlines is patting employees on the back for how they handled the crisis.
First Hawaiian bank, owned by a French banking group, is pulling out of its relationship with domestic banking there due to regulatory risk even though there’s no indication of money laundering. This makes cashing paychecks from the US military base problematic.
Western Union has one branch in the capital, which may leave residents taking a trip hundreds of miles by boat or air to receive funds from the rest of the world.
I’m a big fan of creative and even guerrilla marketing efforts, especially when it’s travel companies getting attention by giving away value to their customers.
Last year Barclays and Mastercard promoted the American Airlines card with in-airport cooking and golf demonstrations with giveaways for cardmembers. United is doing something bigger.
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 »
