News and notes from around the interweb:
- Behind the Scenes With Boeing’s Archivist as the Manufacturer Celebrates 100 years of history
- Delta international upgrade certificates are now valid for Delta codeshares on Virgin Atlantic. Delta owns 49% of Virgin Atlantic, and of course this comes amidst Brexit which should put somewhat of a damper on premium cabin travel, but it’s a nice step improvement for top tier SkyMiles elites.
- The US has temporarily banned flights between Turkey and the US. No US airlines fly commercial passenger flights between the two countries, but this means Turkish Airlines cannot fly to the US for the time being. Following the attempted coup (that was such an an incompetent outlier that some are speculating was staged) the US cites the uncertain security situation.
- Etihad has a US immigration preclearance lounge, a place for premium cabin passengers to wait for their flight in Abu Dhabi after clearing US immigration. Dublin Airport will have one starting Monday as well.
- JetBlue’s new overhauled New York JFK check-in
- I love this new video from American Airlines on the developments that make air travel what it is today, and how the airline is building on its history.
I do think that the culture of the airline has changed markedly over the last few years, as would be expected from this
acquisition bymerger with US Airways. So harkening back to the American Airlines history alone as though it’s a straight line may not be right. But it’s still a compelling piece I think. (HT: Demetrius M.))
The AA commercial is total crock. Maybe it will appeal to people who haven’t flown AA post merger, but millions have and they know better. As a stock holder, I have lost all hope for AA to return to anything close to the airline that AA used to be.
People seem predisposed to hate on airlines and — since stuff is sometimes going to go wrong when you fly –, you’re always going to get horror stories. That said, it seems pretty obvious that the experience on the USA airlines has significantly improved the past couple of years. The billions they’re making has undoubtedly helped: there’s no need for extreme penny-pinching. That said, they will never be as good as less-profit-motivated foreign airlines. At least when it comes to frills.
From a customer standpoint, I can’t say that American has improved more than United or Delta in the past 2 years. It seems like they’ve all improved. The big cultural change at AA is that the company is going to be more entrepreneurial under Doug Parker’s team than it had been before. I’m not sure how noticeable that is to customers. Over time, it will make AA a more successful airline, so that’s good for customers, but that’s a long game.
I also think Elites have it better than regular customers. Elites get a lot of little perks for free, while ordinary travelers get nickeled and dimed: and since they try to avoid these nuisance fees, their experience suffers (like trying to bring their carry-on while in Zone 5). Unfortunately, the USA airline business model is to charge attractive prices, but then nickel-and-dime. All customer satisfaction surveys show customers are happier when they pay one price (even a high price), but feel they’re getting the little perks for free.
“the airline that AA used to be” you mean the one that went bankrupt? lol