After American’s third quarter earnings call late in the week, executives gathered for their internal ‘State of the Airline’ comments to employees along with question and answer session. Vice President – Planning Vasu Raja answered questions about the airline’s route plans in a “network speed round.”
Here are key takeaways:
In August United Airlines President Scott Kirby explains all of their fees and charges as being what you’d expect from a concert, implying it’s not reasonable for people to be frustrated with how airlines charge for things like seats.
In March American Airlines CEO Doug Parker said his airline’s tickets are flexible compared to buying a seat at a sporting event.
American Airlines is losing money on the part of their business which involves flying people. It turns out that American’s passenger operation would look even worse if it hadn’t been for an accounting rules change (ASC 606) that the airline had to adopt effective January 1, 2018.
The accounting rules change of course may be the best possible way to reflect the costs associated with issuing miles. It also has the effect of moving a quarter billion dollars of passenger revenue out of past years and into the present, making the present look better than it otherwise would have as a result.
There’s a 90 day free trial offer for top tier Spire Elite status.
The offer may be targeted at attracting business from specific companies, and IHG doesn’t list which companies they’re interested in. The offer lets anyone register and confirms registration.
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
Programs issue too many miles. There aren’t enough award seats, especially with planes flying full. They need to either increase the number of award seats or increase the cost of each seat, otherwise you just have frustrated members who can’t redeem.
At the same time programs don’t need to spend as much marketing to fill planes when planes are already full. But that’s an argument for reduced earning, not for changing redemption prices.
Programs with set award prices (award charts) usually devalue in a predictable way.
Doug Parker wants to outsource U.S. maintenance jobs. That probably makes sense for the airline. Their mechanics though now realize the public claim about the importance of ‘protecting American jobs’ was self-serving nonsense.
When Marriott acquired Starwood, Marriott Rewards leadership expected to adopt Starwood’s SPG IT platform. They weren’t happy with what Marriott had and were looking into new solutions. Why not just take Starwood’s, after all SPG was viewed as the better loyalty program?
Once they got into things they learned the limitations of the Starwood system. The transition from Starwood to Marriott didn’t go smoothly however.
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
Back in June word leaked that JetBlue founder Dave Neeleman is launching a new airline in the U.S. He has an order for 60 Airbus A220s with options for 60 more.
He says there will no be option to call customer service and no way to check in with an agent at the airport. It’s app-only, but contends the name won’t matter, he “could call this airline crap and people will love it.”
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 »
