Tag Archives for american airlines.
To much fanfare American AAdvantage announced that its elite members would have access to JetBlue extra legroom ‘Even More’ seats if available at check-in.
In fact it is not available to AAdvantage elites at check-in 24 hours prior to departure, it is only available at the airport when booking codeshares.
I’m a frequent critic of American Airlines but I was very impressed with their domestic catering earlier this week. I wrote separately about breakfast on a 1500 mile flight. I’m now returning to talk about dinner on the way back. It was an improvement over what American Airlines was serving pre-pandemic.
I’m genuinely thrilled to know that I won’t go hungry on a flight if I don’t have time to eat running to the airport or running between connections.
Step inside American Airlines Flagship First Dining at New York JFK and you’ll forget for a moment that this is an airline’s lounge. You’d even forget you’re at the airport, except for the floor to ceiling glass views over the tarmac. The space is serene. The service is excellent. And they’re serving food you’d be happy to eat in a nice restaurant.
It’s even better than when it first opened, and reasonably draws comparisons to first class offerings from Lufthansa in Frankfurt and Air France in Paris.
The airport was named for the creator of James Bond – Ian Fleming – and the first Bond film Dr. No was filmed in part in Ocho Rios. The exterior of the Blue Mountain cottage, home of Bond villain Miss Taro, was the Sans Souci hotel. (The film’s crew stayed at this hotel.) In addition Ocho Rios featured in Live and Let Die as well.
Nearby James Bond Beach has featured concerts with Rihanna, Lauryn Hill and Ziggy Marley, and offers the Moonraker bar.
Doug Parker steps down today as CEO of American Airlines. He’ll become non-executive Chairman, but consistently describes this as “retiring.” Airline President Robert Isom becomes CEO in his place.
Parker has been a staple at the top of U.S. aviation for more than two decades, and more than anyone is responsible for changing the entire industry by kicking off consolidation. He’s been a genial leader willing to dress up for Halloween and sing to employees. He’s been personally successful – as successful as anyone can possibly be in the airline industry – while leaving customers, shareholders, and employees all worse off.
It’s particularly galling to send flight attendants to collections and threaten termination over their dues within days of reporting to those same flight attendants that their former union president misappropriated their dues for personal gain. And doubly so since the union flight attendants are paying for is so weak.
On March 16th outgoing American Airlines CEO Doug Parker shared with employees at an internal meeting, a recording of which was reviewed by View From The Wing, that “Demand is enormous right now for air travel. We had last week the 3 highest revenue booking days in our history.”
Former American Airlines flight attendants union head Bob Ross has been barred from serving in any leadership position of the Association of Professional Flight Attendants for life by an arbitrator for misappropriating member dues. Ross was President of the union from April 2016 until March 2018.
The arbitrator found he improperly had the union lease him an apartment and rent him a luxury car for months, and – it appears – pay for personal meals and expenses as mundane as toilet paper.
American Airlines and JetBlue introduced reciprocal elite benefits this past fall. The major omission was reciprocal access to extra legroom seats, largely a function of JetBlue not even offering those to their own elite members.
However JetBlue has been rethinking its elite benefits and now both JetBlue and American elites gain access to extra legroom seats on both airlines along with additional new benefits.
At a recent internal question and answer session with pilots, Vice President of Network and Schedule Planning Brian Znotins shared how American is thinking about using the Airbus A321XLR in Charlotte and how it will trade off with existing widebody service.
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 »
