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Black Conservative Activist Delays American Airlines Flight, Videotaping His Refusal To Wear A Mask

by Gary Leff

Jul 26 2020

David Harris, Jr. is apparently popular in certain circles as a black man who supports President Trump, though I hadn’t heard of him until he made a ruckus on an American Airlines flight – refusing to wear a mask, and advising his followers that only N95 masks are prophylactic, which isn’t supported by the balance of evidence at this point.

Apparently Mr. Harris held up a flight departure on Saturday when he boarded without a mask on, and passengers complained. He reports that he “declared [to] have a medical reason to not wear a mask.”

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American Airlines Now Lets You Use Up To 8 Trip Credits To Make A New Reservation

by Gary Leff

airline ticket
Jul 26 2020

Since Wednesday, July 22 American Airlines has been able to apply up to 8 credits from cancelled ticket to a single new ticket purchase.

When you cancel a trip, any residual value is stored alongside your ticket number. The ticket number is what’s used to apply a credit to a new reservation. American’s AACoRN system now lets an agent enter multiple ticket numbers – up to 8 – that have credits attached to them, and apply them all to a booking.

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American Airlines Bringing Back Sandwiches To Domestic First Class

by Gary Leff

Jul 25 2020

With the global pandemic, airlines have looked to cut costs wherever they can, while saying the changes are driven by safety concerns.

Just last weekend I reported that American Airlines, which started giving out fruit and cheese plates in domestic first class on flights over 900 miles, eliminated meals on the longest domestic flights of more than 2200 miles (such as Miami- Seattle) and similar-length international flights. They’ve already done an about face on this plan.

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American Airlines Tells Flight Attendants Their Jobs Will Be Miserable If They Stay

by Gary Leff

Jul 25 2020

Consumer demand for travel isn’t going to equal what it was before the Covid pandemic for awhile, so airlines will offer fewer flights and won’t need as many employees. In general airlines have to keep employees based on seniority, but were prefer more junior employees who are paid less. So they’re offering senior employees buy outs to voluntarily separate from their company.

With only 401 American Airlines flight attendants taking these ‘early outs’ so far, they’re trying to convince cabin crew that their work will be harder and less pleasant in the future.

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13 Quick, Lesser-Noticed Things Revealed On Today’s American Airlines Earnings Call

by Gary Leff

Jul 23 2020

American Airlines CEO Doug Parker opened the call by thanking “the entire America West Airlines team.” Oops. The airline is often criticized for being America West operating under the American Airlines brand, and that doesn’t help. Parker took over America West days before 9/11, got a government bailout, went on to acquire US Airways and then merge it into the larger American with legacy US Airways executives at the helm.

Following that miscue, which he later said CIO Maya Leibman pointed out to him, he offered that “Black Lives Matter” before getting into quarter’s results and the airline’s plans for dealing with and emerging from the pandemic. 13 things – aside from the actual financial results – stood out to me that help to understand where the airline is going.

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American Airlines Expanded Early, But At The Last Minute Is Scaling Back August Flights

by Gary Leff

Jul 22 2020

American Airlines has been one of the most aggressive in restoring its schedule. As Senior Vice President Vasu Raja has explained, with the federal government picking up payroll costs through September, at $35 oil their break-even load factor is 25%. So they added a bunch of flights to the schedule, restoring 55% of 2019’s capacity.

A month and a half ago I said to expect that travel wouldn’t rebound as quickly as some expected. Even at low break-even levels American is finding they need to scale back their flying again.

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