During the American Airlines third quarter earnings call on Thursday, Cowen and Company’s Helane Becker asked what percentage of customers were actually paying for premium cabin seats.
Chief Commercial Officer Vasu Raja answered somewhat ambiguously at first, but then gave numbers for their domestic route network.
The airline took delivery of new Boeing 787-9 aircraft with the old seats, even after the start of the Polaris project. Seats can have a long lead time. However now, at the end of 2022, United has stopped operating 787-9s with old seats.
Just as United is preparing to decide on new business class seats, they’ll finish putting Polaris seats in the planes which operate their longest flights, like Sydney and Singapore.
There’s a moment at the start of any Singapore Airlines flight in first or Suites class, after you first board. A flight attendant approaches you and offers you champagne. If you accept they will stop, and with a mix of smugness and pride, ask “would you prefer Dom Perignon or Krug?” That classic question is about to change.
Marriott has acquired the ‘City Express’ hotel brand an “affordable mid-scale” chain with 152 hotels across 75 cities in Mexico.
Best Western, Quality Inn, and Ramada are often considered midscale. But these hotels aren’t just midscale, they are affordable midscale.
Airbnb is taking on the worst features of hotels, without mirroring the things that make hotels attractive. Their cleaning fees are legendary, even while hosts give lists of chores for guests to complete (not just taking out the trash, doing the dishes, and washing the sheets but sometimes even mowing the lawn).
Sometimes Airbnb – and competitors like Vrbo – are the best option like when renting a house with a whole family or in a town without hotels. But it seems like they’re working hard to kill that advantage, as evidenced by this reported listing where the owner even charges you extra for booking with them and then adds on a resort fee.
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.
In 26 years of business travel I’ve seen and experienced a lot, from bird strikes to passengers self-upgrading and even one who brought their own alcohol on board and refused to stop drinking it even though they were in first class and the flight attendant was happy to bring them another. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite like this: a passenger with a water bottle in their seat back pocket that was bubbling and had a tube sticking out of it.
On closer inspection, though, it wasn’t just water inside the bottle. There were fish.
The American Airlines electronic submission was on letterhead that did not include the carrier’s mailing address at 1 Skyview Dr, Fort Worth, Texas. It also did not list.. a fax number.
As the government explains, 14 CFR § 11.81 requires listing “[y]our name and mailing address, and, if you wish, other contact information such as a fax number, telephone number, or email address.” Since the FAA doesn’t know where to find American Airlines, and didn’t think to ask the agency’s own American Airlines Certificate Management Office, they declined to consider the request to place doors on business class seats.
Back in August American Airlines teased a new design template for its Admirals Clubs, starting with the new club opening on the E (regional jet) concourse at Washington’s National airport.
We got clues to what American was thinking design-wise when they shared renderings last year of the delayed new Austin club. It’s a total departure from the current design template that’s most generously described as sterile and institutional. It’s gorgeous and feels genuinely high end. In other words it feels too nice for American Airlines and I’m struggling to know what to make of it.
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.
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 »
