Oct 29 2018

Perhaps the fact that all of the focus for years on D0 not actually generating strong on time performance has sunk in. Perhaps it’s the poor financial performance with premium customers not booking American.

Hopefully American will align the resources with the operation and put the customer at the center of their thinking in order to run an on-time operation that delivers value to passengers. If American Airlines President Robert Isom re-watches his answer to this question, it could actually happen.

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Oct 29 2018

Here’s what it’s like not to have elite status on American Airlines. This is a two hour flight. In order to avoid paying extra for seats on top of their fare, and avoid a middle seat, these passengers are able to book something only in the last two rows of the aircraft.

It taught me something about basic economy — and why it is going to perform worse for American as they make the travel experience worse — and I noticed another big failure during the booking process as well.

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Oct 29 2018

After American’s earnings call senior executives took questions from employees at their State of the Airline event.

Kurt Stache, American’s Senior Vice President Marketing, Loyalty & Sales, was asked 3 questions about American’s inflight entertainment and wifi products.

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Oct 28 2018

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:

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Oct 28 2018

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.

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