Here Are Internal Photos Of Proposed Business Class Seat For New American Airlines A321XLR

Aug 20 2022

They’re considering putting doors on their narrowbody lie flat business class seats. And this seat would balance their desire for a top shelf product without taking up a lot of real estate on the plane – they could literally manage to offer less than 35 inches of pitch (distance from the same point on two seats) because of the angling of the seats even as they do just one seat on each side of the aisle since each seat turns into a bed facing outward at an angle from window to the aisle.

The seat would basically back up against the window. That means passengers would all ‘have’ windows but it wouldn’t be easy to look out the window. Instead their back would largely face the window with their feet facing the aisle. Seats would be positioned at an angle in a herringbone pattern. The Collins Aurora seat resembles the Thompson VantageSolo seat which JetBlue uses for their new Mint product.

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Why Airline Wages Rise, And Why Stock Buybacks Don’t Matter

Aug 19 2022

U.S. airlines agreed not to buy back stock until September 30, 2022 as part of their government bailouts during the pandemic. It would have been unseemly to pick taxpayer pockets and immediately turn around and distribute those same funds to shareholders.

Now that the buyback restriction is about to end, unions don’t want airlines to spend money that way, arguing that the funds should go into the operation instead (paying workers more, natch).

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Wonder Why American Express Centurion Studios Are Crowded? They’re Selling Access On Groupon

Aug 19 2022

American Express has its Centurion lounges, and its smaller ‘Studio Partner’ longes which are Escape Lounges. Previously you could use an American Express Platinum card to access Escape lounges, but they’re now branded by American Express and more cardholders know about the benefit.

Like Centurion lounges, these Centurion Studio lounges have become more crowded.

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American AAdvantage Will Now Report To Revenue Management

Aug 18 2022

Having AAdvantage in the same group as revenue management would make sense if the goal were for AAdvantage to gain access to more saver award inventory. That hasn’t been the trajectory at American, which has focused on buying seats outside of traditional saver buckets and more making additional inventory (‘web saver’) available to customers based on prevailing fares.

Instead the explanation for the move is, “Adding the AAdvantage team to this organization will make sure our AAdvantage members are able to unlock benefits across the entirety of our commercial programming.” Allowing AAdvantage members to ‘unlike benefits across the entirely of the airline’s commercial offerings’ sounds more like merchandising, monetizing the member base. Great offers can still be value-add, of course. We’ll have to wait to see how this evolves in practice.

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