Tag Archives for american airlines.
American Airlines offered an erotic fiction author $2,499 to keep her elite status, and instead of taking the bait she responded the only way she could: in character, through the jetset world of her own books. Beneath the joke is a real point about airline loyalty in 2026 — American is charging real money to preserve status benefits that many travelers increasingly believe no longer deliver much of anything.
A passenger ordered sparkling wine in first class and says the flight attendant served fake bubbles instead. When the real thing ran out, she was reportedly given chardonnay mixed with sparkling water — and told this was American Airlines policy.
American Airlines flight attendants are privately voicing fears of a future bankruptcy, according to previously unreported union meeting minutes that describe the carrier’s finances as “dire.” The real concern is not that Chapter 11 is imminent, but that years of weak profitability and strategic mistakes have left the airline vulnerable if conditions get worse.
American Airlines may finally be ready to bring back seatback TVs. That would reverse years of stripping screens from much of its fleet, and it comes just as the airline faces pressure to upgrade a Wi-Fi product that once stood out but has since been passed by rivals.
American Airlines keeps talking about premium travel, but some first class passengers are still being served shelf-stable instant pasta that appears to cost about a dollar a serving. On a nearly 2,000-mile flight from Salt Lake City to Philadelphia, that kind of catering is not just cheap — it undercuts the entire premium story the airline is trying to sell.
American Airlines says it wants to win more premium travelers, but its newest board member is best known for building mass-market consumer brands like McDonalds and Quaker. Mary Dillon brings real brand expertise, but her appointment also highlights a familiar problem at American: a board with limited airline experience and little track record of holding management accountable.
American Airlines returned a checked bag missing a wheel, and the dispute gets at a bigger problem in air travel: airlines routinely lean on “normal wear and tear” to avoid paying damaged baggage claims. The Department of Transportation has warned carriers they cannot simply exclude wheels, handles, and other protruding parts across the board — but in practice, that does not stop airlines from treating almost every broken bag the same way.
Delta has already made clear it wants Austin to become a major growth city, with more gates, more lounges, more flights, and even Seoul in its sights. After adding flights to American’s Miami hub it is now adding Phoenix. As American is distracted by its fight with United at Chicago, Delta is encroaching on American’s hubs.
American Airlines did not just lose ground in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago because competition got tougher. Former CEO Doug Parker’s own explanation of route profitability helps reveal a deeper mistake: the airline treated credit card revenue like generic redemption revenue, instead of tying it to the markets and flights that actually made customers choose AAdvantage cards in the first place.
American Airlines CEO Robert Isom just gave investors an unusually direct promise about AAdvantage: he said the airline intends to keep its miles more valuable for travel than competing programs. That matters because loyalty is American’s biggest profit engine, and Isom is effectively arguing that the airline will grow credit card revenue by making AAdvantage more attractive to customers — not by gutting redemption value.
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 »
