Tag Archives for american airlines.
On Friday American Airlines flight 3508 from Pensacola to Miami returned to the Pensacola airport when a passenger on board said she had a medical emergency. Only there was no medical emergency. She just wanted an upgrade.
The battling between American’s independent APFA union and the stalking horse of the national AFA reminds me of Monty Python’s Life of Brian. They’ve seemed to have forgotten they’re supposed to be fighting the Romans (American Airlines management).
The union needs to be building a war chest for its negotiations. Instead they’re cutting costs like accounting systems that allow for electronic expense reports. They’re keeping higher union leadership pay. And they won’t go to the membership for a dues increase – fearing that would put them out on the streets.
Whenever there’s a flight delay I’ve been able to get agents – whether on the phone or in an Admirals Club – to get me rebooked. However being an Executive Platinum helps, having lounge access helps, and it can be difficult for many passengers to get through to an agent when flights go bad.
The airline has a tool to let customers rebook themselves onto new flights. It’s available on the website, using the airline’s mobile app, or at kiosks and launched two years ago. But when does the ability to rebook oneself onto a new flight become available?
American Airlines has spent a lot of time moving around little green pieces of paper. Starting this month though the paper burden has been reduced.
Two American Eagle flights had to be cancelled when the Bombardier CR-9 regional jets operated by Mesa Airlines were hit by a fuel truck this morning while preparing for departure at the Dallas Fort-Worth B terminal. One aircraft was headed to McAllen, Texas, while the other one was about to head to Albuquerque.
Video of the incident is… just…
On Thursday a frequent flyer shared a story of taking on the role of flight attendant when the American Eagle first class crewmember was neglecting her duties.
At this month’s American Airlines employee question and answer session with senior executives, the airline’s downward spiral in New York came up. The response to this was “We do love New York, I know it doesn’t seem like that with what we’ve done.”
By reducing flying out of New York, American becomes less relevant to New Yorkers and has fewer customers to support the flying that’s left.
American is testing what happens when they eliminate the biggest remaining restriction on Basic Economy fares, the inability to select seats at time of booking.
If American does this they’ll pick up more seat selection revenue, fewer customers will be chased away, but much of the encouragement to buy a more expensive coach fare will be lost. Presumably this test allows American to see which factors are greatest – to see whether Basic Economy is really costing them money as currently conceived.
American viewed the Chilean portion of a LATAM joint venture as ‘not a huge piece’ and they wanted to get the agreement done with the carrier across the rest of South America – not matter what story they’re telling now, with Delta poaching the LATAM partnership.
The higher rate of growth in the airline’s seat capacity next year comes from moving forward when they expect the Boeing 737 MAX to fly again. Parker, of course, has been overly optimistic on the return of the MAX before, suggesting re-certification of the plane was ‘really close’ back in May.
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 »
