Boeing 787 Full of Passengers Held Up Until Passengers Came Up With $360 to Pay for Repairs

by Gary Leff

airplane seats
Nov 20 2018

In 2012 an Air France flight bound for Beirut diverted to Damascas and passengers were forced to come up with cash for additional fuel. The pilot couldn’t use a company credit card because of financial sanctions imposed on Syria.

So as insane as it sounds it’s not without precedent that passengers on a Star Alliance member LOT Polish Boeing 787 flight were asked to reach into their pockets to cover repair costs to the plane’s hydraulic pump before a Beijing to Warsaw journey could begin last Monday.

Continue Reading »

Aeroflot Revokes Elite Status From Journalists and Customers Who Criticize the Airline

by Gary Leff

flight attendants in red
Nov 20 2018

Earlier this year Aeroflot announced that they would revoke the elite status of passengers who behaved badly inflight. Accounts would be closed and miles forfeit.

That policy is now being used to punish journalists and customers who criticize or embarrass the airline. As Yakov Smirnoff might have said, “In Soviet Russia, elite status downgrades you!”

Continue Reading »

American Airlines Introduces A Flight Worse Than All its Others

by Gary Leff

air flight map
Nov 20 2018

American is introducing a flight to compete with all of the painful experiences they’ve offered to customers in the past — and that’s certainly worse than anything else they’re offering today.

Starting in May their Miami to Brazil’s capital of Brasilia flight will no longer be flown by a Boeing 757 with lie flat business class seats. Instead they’ll run the flight with a Boeing 737 MAX. Since the plane has no ovens in back, economy customers will eat hummus.

Continue Reading »

American Airlines: Our New Flight Attendants Lack the Training to Provide Good Service

by Gary Leff

airline food
Nov 19 2018

At the most recent employee question and answer session with American Airlines CEO Doug Parker, a flight attendant asked about the airline’s inflight product — she hears from premium customers that the product United and Delta offer are better, and she worries because new American Airlines flight attendants aren’t getting training in service, and ‘half’ of flight attendants don’t follow the service standards that do exist.

Ok, she did more than ask about the product. She looked right at her CEO and said American’s service standards “suck compared to United and Delta.”

Continue Reading »

American’s CEO Focuses on Operation Over Customers Because He Believes That’s What Customers Want

by Gary Leff

airline seats
Nov 18 2018

American Airlines CEO Doug Parker says their relentless focus on exact on time departures is what customers want, even though it means that upgrades don’t get processed, flights don’t get catered, and customers are forced to gate check bags unnecessarily.

Airlines that achieve operational reliability do it by getting the right resources in place to accomplish everything that’s necessary to get planes out on time, not by requiring employees to skip steps and inconvenience customers in order to achieve operational goals.

Continue Reading »