American Airlines President Believes to Make Money, Give Customers Less

by Gary Leff

May 19 2016

American Airlines President Scott Kirby spoke at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch 2016 Transportation Conference this morning.

The single biggest area of interest among institutional investors, and naturally the very first question Kirby got, was about revenue per available seat mile. Ticket prices are falling. The airline is hugely profitable thanks to low fuel prices, but profits have gone up even as revenue has fallen. Interestingly many of the items he focuses on to drive revenue are about the AAdvantage program.

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Southwest Devalues Again, Third Time in Less Than 3 Years

by Gary Leff

May 18 2016

Southwest Airlines introduced ‘Rapid Rewards 2.0’ — their revenue-based program — in 2011. After just two and a half years they devalued their points about 15%, reducing the maximum value you can get out of a point to 1.43 cents.

Then a mere year later they devalued again by introducing a sliding scale of value — sometimes you’d still get 1.43 cents a point in value on their cheapest fares, but sometimes you’d get less. That change went into effect April 17, 2015 after two months’ notice.

Now, a year later, they appear to have devalued again and this time they did it without any notice at all.

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American Will Introduce Domestic Premium Economy Next Year

by Gary Leff

May 18 2016

American Airlines President Scott Kirby spoke today at the Bank of America Transportation Conference and indicated that ‘premium economy’ would be coming to the domestic fleet in 2017.

‘Premium economy’ domestically sounds to me something akin to what Delta has done with their extra legroom product. American offers Main Cabin Extra which is just extra legroom seating. Delta bundles their extra legroom with free drinks and snacks (depending on flight length).

As of yesterday’s flights it’s a separate fare class that passengers get upgraded into on the basis of their elite status.

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Don’t Do This When Going Through Immigration and Customs

by Gary Leff

May 18 2016

A passenger once left something in a British Airways lavatory so horrible the plane had to turn around and go back to Heathrow.

On the other end of the spectrum, a different passenger once left 24 gold bars in the lavatory of a Jet Airways flight. They were found when the aircraft was being cleaned in Kolkata. And it proved to the world that Jet Airways does, in fact, clean their lavatories.

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This May Be the Pettiest Thing Delta Has Ever Done

by Gary Leff

May 17 2016

The Fox Theater in Atlanta is a storied institution. It was built in the 1920s, played a role in racial integration, and was the last venue Prince played before he died. Delta has supported it for over 20 years — until now.

The non-profit theater, which rents out space for private functions, allowed Qatar Airways to rent space — and didn’t call to ask Delta’s permission first.

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Singapore Airlines Introduces Premium Economy Awards and Upgrades, Eliminates “Full” Awards

by Gary Leff

May 17 2016

Singapore Airlines premium economy awards will become available to KrisFlyer members May 24 and mileage upgrades to premium economy will become available June 1. This is for Singapore flights only, and not for Star Alliance partner flights.

Since only one category upgrade is possible, that means on flight which offer premium economy it will no longer be possible to upgrade from coach to business. And premium economy cabins are small, those upgrades could be tough to get.

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Starting Today, Delta Has Completely Mucked Up Upgrades

by Gary Leff

May 16 2016

Delta sees the end of first class upgrades in 2018. That’s because they’re going to be upselling coach passengers into nearly all of their first class seats instead.

With first class seats mostly upsold, Delta wants their extra legroom seats to be the upgrade. And they want elites to even buy those. Starting with today’s flights new rules ‘upgrades’ to extra legroom seats become tougher for elites.

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