Category Archives for Airlines.
At an American Airlines Crew News Q&A session between employees and management one flight attendant raised the problem that customers don’t know how to access the inflight video American is providing, “Our customers are having a problem finding the landing page for our inflight internet… they’re having a hard time finding the videos. I probably get 5, 6 people asking on a flight.”
American its transatlantic joint venture partners announced that they are rolling out Basic Economy fares across the Pond, following the lead of Delta and its partners.
File this under completely expected, but another degradation in the travel experience that offers less value to customers at the same price.
Last year a French woman flew United to San Francisco when her boarding pass was for a flight to Paris. United said ‘oops’.
Now a partially blind 80 year old United passenger accidentally flew to Denver instead of Raleigh this week.
American Airlines is pissed that Chicago O’Hare expansion plans preserve United’s 14 gate advantage rather than the 9 gate advantage they say they expected after shelling out for 5 new gates themselves. At issue is O’Hare’s $8.5 billion expansion plan, and what they dub a ‘secret provision’ added in ‘at the last minute’ that gives United more gates than they thought the plan entailed. American Airlines at Chicago O’Hare Both United and American have resisted adding gates at Chicago O’Hare for years, since they have most of the gates themselves and don’t want competition. They are happy to see gates added as long as they are the ones who get the gates, and if they’re both getting gates they want to ensure neither gets an advantage over the other. United Airlines at O’Hare Things are…
A Miami-based flight attendant asked about building a buffer to ensure flights are properly catered, “several years ago I was called into the office because I took a 14 minute delay to wait for china plates to plate the food for Brazil. Like I’m going to shut the door and have a first class service to Brazil with no china plates, I just set the tins in front of them.”
There was a lot of discussion at an American Airlines employee Q&A about the carrier’s fleet.
Airline President Robert Isom confirms that “Newer model used aircraft are absolutely something we have an eye out for. As we take a look at where 319s are available we’re gonna be out there after them, because we want ’em”
United Airlines filed their 10-K annual report to the SEC (.pdf), and a couple of things stood out to me in their disclosures about the MileagePlus program.
Most importantly United just isn’t growing the number of miles it sells to partners.
A passenger flying United from Chicago O’Hare to Newark on United got into an argument with staff over the definition of ‘is’ about whether their purse fit in the bag sizer as a personal item. Even though it clearly fits.
The first employee says it doesn’t fit even while the bag is inside the sizer.
During an airline Q&A session with employees, one pilot says of American’s new standard domestic lavatories “It’s the most miserable experience in the world.”
He continues, “I can’t turn around in it. The sink is the most miserable thing going, and you cram those people in those little tiny seats you just bragged about to the point that I can’t sit back there. As a crew member if I ever have to deadhead back there I’ll refuse because it’s just not practical.”
American is dropping a flight attendant from their Boeing 777-200s in March arguing that the ratio of flight attendants to economy passengers would be the same as before the retrofit product (dropping first class, adding premium economy).
American has more Boeing 777-200s than any other widebody aircraft, and they’re treating premium economy on that plane as economy from a service standpoint even though they’re marketing it as a premium product.
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 »
