Dear American Airlines. One simple change to your service would signal a break from the past and a bright premium future. Change the coffee, and I have a specific suggestion for how you do this.
When United Airlines CEO Jeff Smisek was forced to step down over corruption charges, he was quickly replaced by legacy Continental Airlines board member Oscar Munoz. Munoz set to turn the airline around. While current CEO Scott Kirby is credited with much of the work elevating United as a premium airline and turning around its fortunes, a lot of the heavy lift was done by Munoz.
- He traveled the system talking to employees, giving them hope for the future and motivating them to become a part of the airline’s turnaround. He spent tremendous time connecting with the front line.
- He reversed Smisek-era cost cuts. While Smisek’s face was known to United flyers as the one promising ‘changes you’re going to like’ from the United-Continental merger, he was relentless in cheapening the product. His effort to cut $2 billion in costs was given the Orwellian name Project Quality.
The Polaris business class seat was green lit under Smisek, but it was Munoz who signed off on all of the service elements. This makes sense because Polaris is, above all else, the most efficient way to squeeze seats into a business class cabin while maintaining lie flat direct aisle access.
But Munoz didn’t start the turnaround with business class. The first thing he did – a real symbolic break from the past – was focus on two things in economy.
- Coffee. The onboard coffee was much-hated Fresh Brew, still used by American Airlines. Flyers derided it as ‘fresh poo’. They didn’t just get rid of that coffee, the introduced a genuine premium brand in Illy.
- Snacks. They brought out the Stroopwafel, beloved by flyers, and which pairs well with the coffee – demonstrating a real thoughtfulness in the product that had been lacking
I tell this story because American Airlines (1) says they want to be premium now (since competing at the low-end of the marketplace hasn’t worked out well, indeed with their high costs they need to earn a revenue premium) and (2) has focused on premium passengers exclusively so far – talking up the new business class suites that are coming, a new business class lounge in Philadelphia, and more first class seats that will trade off with coach legroom.
If American Airlines wants to be a premium carrier, it is important to remember that most passengers fly economy. They may see first class, and eventually buy up there – which is why seeing a beautiful cabin is important for sales, and seeing passengers enjoying themselves with an elevated service underscores how important simple things like predeparture beverages can be.
But they aren’t going to want to fly American if there aren’t little touches that make the experience just a bit more human. And why not start with the coffee, like United did?
Plus, if Eurowings can pull this off in Europe surely American Airlines can manage it:
European value airline Eurowings is taking in-flight coffee to new heights with the trial of this innovative self-contained coffee cart!
Cappuccinos, macchiatos, and espressos are no longer just for premium cabins—this game-changing cart prepares barista-style coffee and hot chocolate at the touch of a button, right at passengers’ seats. The fully autonomous cart comes equipped with its own battery, water, and milk supply, allowing cabin crew to serve fresh coffee on demand during the service in the cabin.
Today, coffee on American Airlines serves just one purpose: covering up smells in the lavatory.
But come on, wouldn’t you prefer an airline offering this for your next trip in economy, provided that price, schedule and legroom were constant?
And I actually think that flight attendants would love providing this service – it would give them something to be proud of. And if you give them the tools, and pride, they’ll be excited and provide excellent service.
That needs to be paired, of course, with the first Oscar Munoz lesson of getting out and spending time with the front line, motivating them and describing the bright future that they can be part of, that you need them to be part of.
Former American Airlines Chief Executive Doug Parker once said that flight attendants shouldn’t receive profit sharing because they don’t affect profit. That attitude is part and parcel of why service on American Airlines suffers. Employees don’t think it matters. They’ve also been told for years that they are chasing Spirit and Frontier, and so that’s the level of service they naturally target. But – and now that they have the same profit sharing formula as Delta – explaining to them how they do matter for profit is another great place to start.
People in catering at AA make up so many excuses for why they have substandard products, instead of coming up with innovative solutions, they pencil whip every decision and way overthink and underdeliver. While the search for Illy and making sure UAL had access to the amount of supplies and distribution they needed was involved, it’s not rocket science. Either the people in catering at AA have no taste and don’t know any better, are lazy and don’t try harder or are told by the penny pinchers that if its cheap and is brown water, it is OK.
Genius to reuse ground coffee beans to cover up the smells. Haha
American Airlines is going backwards. I haven’t received a meal in first class on the last four flights that I have taken that ordinarily would have meals. Excuses such as the food vendor didn’t show up. Or they just don’t say a thing. Not even snack boxes are offered. And even though I am at the top of every upgrade list based on loyalty points, 50% of the first cabinets are filled and now this includes pilots and other American employees.
As one who is almost exclusively an AA customer, due to convenience of routes, I can tell you coffee is about the last thing most people are concerned about. (Drink a lot of coffee… wait in line for the lavatory half the flight. Not really a deterrent to flying American.
AA’s problems go much deeper than the bad coffee bean.
Alaska dumped Charbucks in favor of Stumptown — a DEFINITE improvement.
Wait , good management doesn’t mean you run around with a chainsaw?
Seatback screens. No, I don’t want to bring my own. A cramped San Francisco to Chicago flight passes much easier with a movie or TV episode of my choosing. DL, and now UA, understand this. AA went backwards and it will now cost them a fortune if they want to play catch up. Nice going, AA management!
Someone posted a pic of a sad A320 first class seat. I might have sat in it when it was US Airways because it looked like it hadn’t changed in 15 years. AA feels like a step backward from US, which is crazy.
Ok, we got it… The bar to clear in order to become a premium US airline is really low.
Gary, I’m with you! I’m a big coffee drinker but these days on flights of 3 hours or less, I avoid the coffee even though I do want to drink a cup. On longer flights, I usually breakdown and have some coffee.
More importantly serve stroop waffles in coach and folks will tell their friends. That would actually be a big win in terms of customer experience.
Solid points. So much of it comes down to the little details adding up. A stroopwafel may not be a reason to choose UA over AA on its own (or maybe it is) but subconsciously remembering your positive experiences as a whole makes a big difference come decision time when you have options.
Coffee? Could care less. I’d rather heave a cheaper fare.
No no no Gary, it’s the schedule and on time departures that make the airline have a premium feeling.
I’m a hub captive EP who pretty much stays in main cabin and pretty much the last thing on my mind is how bad the coffee is. But I get it, they have to start somewhere, this might as well be the hill they decide to charge up.
It’s American Airlines, enough said!
Presumably the AA Board, or people they know, see this forum, countless others, none favorable to AA. It’s reasonable to assume they’re aware of the general theme of them. They have various duties to Shareholders, including asking Officers to explain. And the comments continue in number and specifics. Even though they’re selected and proposed by Management, seems somebody would feel the need to ask Q’s, propose changes.
United has a come a long way from its decades and continuous cycles of labor-management headaches, its filthy airplanes, deferred maintenance, and difficult merger with Continental which took years to fully integrate. Yes, indeed, United made some seemingly small but important moves early on like switching to Illy Coffee (which is hardly a premium brand, but a much better product than the run of the mill stuff that was until then served…and the stroop waffel, which perhaps are the origins of United’s seismic shifts). But United is not a premium airline nor is it a premium brand. Its on board catering is abysmal and its customer service is just as hit and miss as it is at Delta and American. Delta has spent the better part of the 18 years since it emerged from Chapter 11 burnishing its image as a business savvy, premium airline, largely by upping the Economy experience. It still flies disparate Delta One cabins, many of which are truly awful, but it does round out the rough edges with the illusion of being better, even when it really isn’t. Same for United.
American, sadly, is run the same way it always ways from the time it began removing one olive from salads, through its sitting on the sidelines and letting everyone run circles around it from 2002 to 2011 when it finally figured out it too could exploit bankruptcy and finally did. The AA management remains focused on cost cutting and can’t seem to find a way to better segment its offering other than making it irritating for its customers, whereas Delta and increasingly United, have mastered the art of upselling mediocrity to better mediocrity.
But in the end, United isn’t a premium carrier or brand. The idea is ludcrious.
If coffee is what it takes to make AA a premium airline, it looks like I won’t be flying them ever. I used to drink coffee as a kid to be like Mom and Dad but I realized that I really didn’t like the taste so I quit and haven’t drank coffee for more than 50 years. IMO, coffee doesn’t make one bit of difference. In fact, if they served really terrible coffee that caused fewer people to crowd the airplane, it would be a good thing.
No, that’s way down the list.
1) fix standby do a) airport personnel can add you and b) remove the minimum advance time
2)allow through checked bags in all AA (or AA plus Joint venture )
Disconnects far worse than bad coffee
As big a sleaze as Smisek was, Oscar was a shining star. I was so saddened when he got so sick, but I hope he’s proud of what he set in motion. Polaris is an experience to look forward to.
None of the big three are actually ‘premium’ like the Middle East or East Asian carriers (QR, EK, NH, JL, SQ, etc.) Believe me, I love me some stroop and , but that’s not gonna do it alone, regardless of the brand of coffee or gin. Aviation! AA and UA should switch out their soap brands—like, how about some Aesop. @Boardingareaflukie is right, IFE is a must, if you wanna call it ‘premium.’ But ultimately, if you aren’t operating timely, reliable service, like @DunkinDFDubya says, then none of the fanciful accoutrements matter much at all. Honestly, AA just needs to get those new business class suites up and running and that’ll just about do it for me. More Flagships like Soho and Chelsea at JFK T8 would be swell too.
This article solved a mystery. I saw a coffee filter pack in an AA lavatory, I thought a flight attendant left it there by accident and I tossed it in the trash. It’s meant to be an air freshener? Looked like garbage to me.
American’s and n-flight coffee is actually a Coca Cola company product. Go figure.
I’m not exactly sure why, but coffee drinking on US domestic flights is quite low. At the same time, lots of coffee is drunk in the morning in the terminals. Personally, I don’t think this would move the needle, but would “better coffee” actually be discernible on board? I could think of several reasons why good coffee could taste like swill in an aircraft cabin.
AA may preach caring for people along life’s journey, but it is absolutely NOT a part of their culture and that’s completely on Isom and his cronies who value on time departure above all else. Remember that Isom canned 650+ people a year ago, including the entire Customer Relations department and all of the AAdvantage Customer Service department, in the name of customer success. He can now claim that he wants to focus on a premium experience, but if we look at past behavior…. It’s doubtful that we’ll see any meaningful change as long as he’s around. I just don’t believe him.
United is far, far from premium anything. The closest they get are their Polaris lounges.
These articles really start to show who is paying Gary. The Kirbybux are flowing in.
@KBux – that’s hilarious, as I understand it Scott Kirby personally dislikes me.
UA’s improvement in customer service came w/ the Dr. Dao incident which came under Oscar’s watch.
He realized based on the global pushback how bad UA’s policies and reputation were.
And someone noted that AA’s coffee is actually a Coca-Cola product. If so, then DL of all airlines should be wedded to it but they walked away. Whether you like Starbucks or not, it is very popular.
and just like DL’s Biscoffs, UA got a heck of a deal by using Illy coffee. Stroopwaffel is a common and not a brand name for a product.
specific to AA, they have neither the people (frontline or execs) or the soft product (some cases the hard product as well) that want to be premium. AA can have a good product but they have wanted to be low cost and low quality for so long that it will take at least a generation to lose the employees and customers who only see AA is a low quality brand.
btw, the DOT finalized and released its Air Transportation Consumer Report for 2024 yesterday. AA and UA both were in the bottom positions on baggage mishandling while UA was near the bottom on rates of cancellations.
If the definition of premium includes the commonly measured airline customer service metrics, UA is just middle tier in aggregate – upper tier in on-time.
Forget coffee. They have airplanes doing 6 hour flight that have no screens. Zero.
Why would anyone want to buy a transcon ticket on this airline??
I personally would never have coffee on any carrier (except maybe Eurowings) based on their disgusting water supply
Airlines aren’t run by “airline guys” anymore, they’re run by finance guys for whom the only real focus is the bottom line. Oscar did what an old school airline guy would’ve done. He went out and talked to the people who really run the airline. One of the big complaints from passengers was the quality of the coffee. A small thing, but easy to implement, and with a significant positive impact.
American has turned into the laughing stock of the airline world. Hell, airline vloggers and bloggers have literally written AA of and actually laugh at the words legacy where they are concerned.
As someone who works for them, AA has lost its way and has doubled down on their out of touch notion that they are loved by the flying public and all is good. They have the “nothing to see here” approach. The sad reality is they have decimated the culture. Wanna know why everything seems chaotic and everyone seems apathetic at best, look no further than the leadership. The VP of Inflight is a woman who came from FedEx…a cargo company. THIS should tell you everything you need to know about America.
And may I say if AA actually decided to become a premium airline and gave the tools and staffing to the fa’s, I PROMISE you the crews would do a great job because most are itching for a product to be proud of. How can you delivered a shit product with a smile when you are constantly apologizing for such. It simply gets old to the most positive FA.
AA Management will only do enhancements and upgrades to the product if there’s a definite ROI or ROA. MBA school management practice. Since there could never be a positive ROI/ROA with better coffee there will be no new coffee. Ditto AVOD.
Forget about coffee; UA needs to upgrade their food catering to become a premium airline; the waffles snack sounds good, but look at the ingredients: contains palm kernel oil, one of the worst for heart and arteries; so they must have gotten a good deal on that snack.
Agree that no U.S. airlines are “premium,” not even everyone’s beloved Delta.
The REAL thing AA needs to do is just show they CARE about customers, just in their day to day language and interactions, but this is difficult to achieve when the take from the top is that they don’t and that they don’t care about employees either.
To the person that didn’t know coffee grounds are used as air freshener… Yes the flight attendants stole that from nurses, where it has been used for probably at least a century.
And to Gary,… You really think people care about coffee that much? Yes it would align more with thinking a brand was higher end by having branded coffee like Illy (which most people also don’t think of as any better than Starbucks), but I don’t think that many people are actually drinking hot coffee on flights anymore (maybe that was in the 60s??) — you should do a survey, ask any contacts you have and I bet coffee is only actually served to like 5% of customers or something like that. I tried drinking coffee on flights YEARS ago but stopped for several reasons:
1) coffee is served at boiling temperatures by flight attendants so it takes 30 minutes to cool down and they come through 20 minutes later to collect it and it’s not even cool enough to drink
2) everyone knows the water supply on board is very dirty and the tanks are never cleaned so even “branded” coffee can taste like sh$t on board
3) most coffee travel warriors prefer to go to Starbucks or Peet’s or something before the flight and get a large coffee to their liking
4) most on board coffee is barely customizable, e.g. they MIGHT have a sugar packet, creamer powder or industrial half and half to throw at you but a lot of people prefer their coffee with something different like Stevia, Splenda, almond milk, etc.
5) most in North America drink ICED coffee and not hot coffee these days