Tag Archives for airbus a320.
American Airlines is putting an additional row of first class into its Airbus A319 and A320 aircraft. They’re about the start work on the prototype A319. They expect to retrofit the first group of planes in the fall – the ones due for heavy maintenance checks – and then will proceed with the ones that only need cabin interior work.
On Thursday, American Airlines flight 835 from Tampa to Philadelphia went out without working water. According to a passenger on the flight, a gate agent announced that everyone should use the airport restrooms prior to boarding the scheduled 2 hour 41 minute trip.
Lufthansa keeps making strange decisions with the interiors of its aircraft, and not learning from the experience of other airlines. They’ve crammed so many seats into their Airbus A320neo aircraft that there’s virtually none left for the galley – and this leaves them to seat a flight attendant on a folding chair.
The American Airlines fleet of Airbus A320s is a mess, and should really be put out of their misery. Since the airline has gone over a decade without investing in them, they’re dragging down already low expectations for customer experience at the airline.
It’s usually first class on these planes, but here’s a coach seat that’s allowed to fly.
A first class passenger flying American Airlines from Dallas to Grand Rapids, Michigan on Sunday had a surprise – the person sitting in front of them in seat 2C had an extra special premium seat. The seat reclined more than most first class. And American didn’t even charge them extra! Some might say the seat was “broken” but I prefer to think of it as “angled flat.”
An airline employee fell off a TransNusa Airbus A320 in Indonesia, and video of the incident is spreading widely. He stepped out the door of the aircraft – just as stairs to the aircraft were being removed. Fault here lies with the ground handler, which shouldn’t remove the stairs while the aircraft’s door is open.
Avion Express flight 8242 from Milan Bergamo airport in Italy to Vilnius, Lithuania landed on the airport’s runway 19. It “veered right off the runway onto soft ground” and then proceeded to make another turn and head off the grass and back onto the runway instead of coming to a stop. The Lithuanian airline’s Airbus A320 then taxied onto the apron.
If a single Airbus A320 was misjudged by a single truck driver or crane operator, acting alone, we could chalk that up to that’s what insurance is for. But these aren’t – or at least shouldn’t be – operations planned by a single individual. Even a 34 year old narrowbody aircraft fuselage headed to the boneyard is worth measuring for height, and checking the heights of bridges along the planned route before ploughing ahead.
How about being first on the upgrade list, there’s a seat available, and the gate agent doesn’t bother processing upgrades? Or someone no shows and the agent doesn’t bother coming on board to upgrade someone into the seat.
Or, there’s what happened to this American Airlines passenger: they were first on the list, a first class seat was available, but it was broken? It’s always the American Airlines Airbus A320s.
American Airlines retrofitted its domestic fleet. Legacy American Airlines Boeing 737s and Airbus A321s that had seat back entertainment had those screens removed. They added seats to planes, giving each passenger less room (even in first class). They even shrunk the lavatories.
There are two strange things about this fleet, though.
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 »
