American Airlines Is Playing Whack-A-Mole With Problems As They Come Up (Not Getting Out Ahead)

by Gary Leff

Aug 29 2021

Large organizations have a tendency become bloated and sclerotic. It’s striking that American Airlines cut 30% of its management workforce, $500 million per year in payroll, and has returned to operating most of its flights.

That naturally raises an interesting question, what were they carrying all that staff for in the first place? Shouldn’t they have eliminated these same positions years ago? That would never have worked, and they’re seeing now why it didn’t work so well this time either.

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Uber Still Extending Elite Status

by Gary Leff

phone with uber on it
Aug 29 2021

The odd thing is that Uber hasn’t told me they’ve extended my status. It’s a great opportunity to capture loyalty with members but the program doesn’t bother to communicate. Which is just another sign that Uber has largely given up and is almost indifferent to its loyalty program. They know they have good customers they want to keep, but they’ve consistently devalued the elite program which was only modestly rewarding to start with.

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At Wits End Over Bad Passenger Behavior, American’s CEO Declares “The Customer Is Not Always Right!”

by Gary Leff

Aug 29 2021

Doug Parker says that American Airlines has been investigating 1 in every 300,000 passengers for an airline ban – about two people per day that they “have to decide if they can ever fly American Airlines or not.” That’s a five-fold increase.

Chief Operating Officer David Seymour shared the plan for what’s next: getting government to crack down on airport alcohol sales.

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Turkey Strikes Deal For Control Of The Kabul Airport

by Gary Leff

Aug 28 2021

To show just how complicated things are, though, the previous government of Afghanistan had negotiated a deal with a UAE-based group to operate the airport and “[t]he Taliban will need to cut a separate deal with them.”

The deal gets Turkish President Erdogan a bargaining chip with the West, and also helps avoid Turkey being the recipient of refugees (as they are from Syria) and gives them control of the drug trade out of Afghanistan. Put another way, Turkish control over the airport probably makes continued expatriation of Afghans possible while also being a bad result in greater Turkish influence in the region as well as inside NATO.

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Here’s The Future Of The American Airlines Philadelphia Hub

by Gary Leff

Aug 28 2021

Brian Znotins, American’s Vice President of Network and Schedule Planning, laid out the airline’s vision for Philadelphia – which is many ways is what is was before the pandemic. Even though American will be able to support more transatlantic flying from New York JFK with their JetBlue partnership, Philadelphia will remain their primary connecting gateway to Europe.

And with smaller and more fuel efficient Airbus A321XLRs coming into the fleet they’ll be able to serve summer seasonal Europe destinations year-round – and more destinations than they’ve served in Europe as well.

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