News and notes from around the interweb:
- Germany stops recognizing British National (Overseas) Passports, documents granted by the British government to Hong Kong permanent residents who were British citizens prior to the handover. (Germany insists “that BNO is not a nationality and is only a travel document. As Hong Kong is part of China, [Hongkongers] need a Chinese passport in order to stay in Germany.”)
- ExpressJet, 49% owned by United, shut down its Embraer ERJ-145 at the end of September. They kept one plane and their operating certificate and now plan to start flying again as an independent airline in June and will lease nine additional regional jets.
By June 2021 it plans for three aircraft to operate a total of 420 departures carrying a total of 15,847 passengers in six point-to-point markets. It anticipates those travelers would pay an average of $153 for the service. The fleet would grow to 10 aircraft over the course of a year, reaching a dozen markets.
ExpressJet was a regional carrier owned by United Airlines that had been a part of Continental, inherited from the original mess of airlines acquired by Texas Air in the mid-1980s (that included Eastern and People Express in addition to Continental). They were spun off in 2002, sold to Atlantic Southeast a decade ago, and then reacquired in 2017.
- Boeing’s new coach seat as part of their joint venture with Adient.
- The President of American AAdvantage on the program’s current priorities.
- What happened to an ex-Four Seasons luxury charter Boeing 757.
@captainbedbug B757 ex Four Seasons Luxury Tour airplane ##tiktokaviation ##fyp ##foryoupage ##dayinmylife ##dreamjob ##b757
- Dallas – Fort Worth re-opens runway 18R/36L
Really? American drove me to the Big Front Seat, WN, B6, AS and JL. They went from supporting a fare premium/preference (due to the T, domestically) to demanding a discount as a weak Spirit wannabe. Good luck with the NK aspiration + the bloated cost and debt structure. Making the break was sad, pitching lifetime status was sadder, but my air travel experiences got a lot better!
PDT, Couldn’t have said it any better. As an elite with American Airlines for over a decade, and executive platinum for the last 6 years, and someone just shy of 1 million miles flown with American Airlines, I have multiple flights booked and several already traveled and I have done everything possible to avoid American Airlines and in fact do not have a single flight booked with them. I used to pay more to fly them over WN, B6, UA, DL, among others but not anymore. Their spirit wannabe product is weak and inferior to almost all other major carriers, they have a people problem, and they are extremely difficult to do business with. As such, I am putting my money where my mouth is and giving my business to carriers who actually want me to fly with them. The fact that they have refused to extend expiring systemwide upgrades past July 31, 2021, companion passes past June 30, 2021, among others is the final straw that broke the camels back. It truly has been great to not have to deal with the stress and frustration of American Airlines any longer.
Add me to the comments above. When AA took my final 70k AA miles for inactivity, I lost the only reason I still had to ever fly AA again. Smart move there AA.
I agree with all of the above comments. I am a lifetime Platinum, and have had many millions of miles flown on AA. As of a decade ago, I flew every flight on AA unless it did not fly to my destination at all. However, the change of the program over the past few years has made it so that there is no benefit to me flying AA, it fails to recognize my past loyalty and I get much more flying on Southwest domestically or United internationally.
So, it is clear from his comments in the video that AA does not give a s— about people who helped it build the airline over the years, so they have lost my loyalty.
@Joseph N Sorry your miles expired. But, c’mon, that’s on you, not AA.
Good on Germany. We don’t need more Chinese in europe who already own too much, take jobs, and add to the burdens of foreigners living in Europe to the European people. People from Hong Kong complain about the oppressive Chinese communist government and lack of free speech/religious freedom/gun rights/economic freedom/social freedom, but 75% of them vote for leftist candidates in the U.S. when they come over. I figure it’s the same in Europe and Australia. No thanks. We have enough problems already.
The AA segment seemed like a lot of corporate blather with no substance.
The Boeing seat information is yet more bad news with even more torturous slimline seats. If only the people designing these things would have to experience them regularly, there would be some serious changes to improve comfort.
Please tell me that the runway opening at DFW will mean less ATC holds? There have been excessive amounts in the past year, and I feel like I have heard “construction” used as an excuse. I fly a lot of small airports that have to connect into DFW, so that never helps. But it’s that or drive 3 hours–though frankly, sometimes the drive ends up being shorter…
I have been Executive Platinum continuously since 2004 and can attest to the continuous degradation of the AAdvantage program. My score card this year for business on AA is 0/0/0 on my AAdvantage account. Shoddy service in the air; perks which have little to 0 value anymore. I think those who say AA wants has become the new Spirit airline are spot on.
@jackson waterson
Of all the people on here, you must be the most outright racist. Explain to everyone on here, how the Chinese when they come over here or to Europe or Australia vote leftist. How do they do it, just walk in to a voting booth and vote leftist or what? Do they have to show their passport? I didn’t know Hong Kong citizens have gun rights.
Hey man, you belong in the looney bin!!!!!
There have been devaluations across most of the FF programs, so that’s not the driver of my decision for loyalty at this point.
The problem with American is that the new domestic product is so uncomfortable versus other options that I don’t want to fly it.
Major miss on their end and insulting to see them doubling down on the strategy.
All of the people complaining about AA seem to forget that American was taken over by US Airways, which was taken over by America West, a low service airline. Therefore, do you expect American to perform like the old airline, when you have America West management running it now?
@Jackson Waterson: The claim that anyone from overseas comes to the U.S. to vote “leftist” is simply untrue. One must be an American citizen to vote in a U.S. election. U.S. Permanent resident status (a so-called “Green Card”) is not enough.
Few if any people obtaining a BNO passport (for former UK citizens living in Hong Kong in 1999) would qualify for U.S. citizenship to vote — they would need dual U.S./UK citizenship as of 1999, and be still living in HK. If this were true, they would qualify for a U.S. passport, and would likely choose that over a BNO passport for obvious reasons.
The out and out lie that significant numbers of non-citizens are voting in U.S. elections (they can’t) or that voter fraud is rampant (it isn’t) is part of the fear mongering that the far right is using to justify disenfranchising minorities. It needs to stop.
I’m with all the other former AA loyalists. Lifetime PLT, 3 million miler, was EXP for many years. It’s mostly the decline of service and surly employees that have put me off. I noticed the AAdvantage dude didn’t once mention service. Appropriate. There is no service any longer. Just trying to use up my miles at this point.
@Jacksonhole Rob and Retired Lawyer replied to your asinine comment regarding BNO’s. I need not say more.
Re: Germany not recognizing the BNO. The government still engages in that all to familiar Teutonic logic. I suspect the PRC put some diplomatic pressure on the FRG. .
The loyalty component (cluelessness) is one thing, as I mentioned at the outset. But when I’m connecting through an AA hub (CLT in particular), the aggressive banking/tight connects and the operational incompetence still makes misconnects a 50-50 proposition. That’s absurd. They still can’t get the trains to run on time. I do hope that they get anyone from the industry on their board. Parker screwed me on America West (HP) when my flights showed up 33% of the time in Tucson and I finally drove to PHX out of desparation. He screwed me when he folded the USAir shuttle into mainline operations and it became immediately unreliable. And he screwed me as the 150 seat 738 became 172 seats and every seat in the plane became uncomfortable under Oasis. Let’s start with achieving operational competence. What passes as loyalty can then follow. As @garyleff says, let’s get a clear mission statement and unified marching orders from top to bottom. All of our “first world” gripes begin and end with muddled executive leadership and management. (But, boy, that crystal palace shiny new headquarters at DFW – that no one is in — sure was a great use of corporate cash.) Come on. Parker is supposed to be an industry veteran. Pick a business model, any model, and execute! Hemming and hawing doesn’t work.