Tag Archives for american airlines.
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.
Paying a name chef to associate with the airline meals is a way to announce the airline cares about its food. And if consumers believe the name chef cares about their reputation at all, they won’t put their name on the food unless it meets certain standards. It’s also not very expensive for an airline to rent the chef’s name relative to the total cost of the meals provided.
A celebrity chef doesn’t guarantee a good meal, in fact if a chef is putting their names on an airline meal you should downgrade your estimation of the chef. It means they’re more interested in the revenue stream from branding than maintaining quality for the simple reason that they cannot possibly replicate the restaurant quality of their means in the air, heated in an airplane galley, and plated by US airline flight attendants.
Back in February 2018 I wrote that American was in the market for used Airbus A319s and might pick some up from Frontier. And then six months later that’s exactly what they did.
A couple of months ago I wrote that American was again looking to acquire used Airbus A319s.
In a surprising move – because they’re being more generous with members – American Airlines has changed the rules for expiring systemwide upgrades.
Yesterday I wrote about wide open business class award space on Iberia’s new Washington Dulles – Madrid flight that launches May 1.
This flight can be booked using American AAdvantage miles, with British Airways miles, with Cathay Pacific miles, or any number of other programs (including points transferred from bank programs).
Fifteen years ago most of domestic first class cabins were filled with upgrades. On average about 10% of domestic first class seats were sold for cash. That’s changed.
Upgrades are far tougher than they used to be. American Airlines monetizes about half their domestic first class cabin. But how are the upgrades that still exist obtained? Here’s data that shows how people really get up there.
Back in April American Airlines Senior Vice President Kurt Stache talked about the carrier clarifying its brand purpose and launching a new marketing campaign around it. At the time I was both excited and skeptical.
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 »
