Tag Archives for american airlines.
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
So what happened? Presumably he was un-checked in or offloaded by the gate agent in error. This happens occasionally, most often during irregular operations when there may be multiple flights in a booking (backup options).
A customer shows up for their return flight only to find they have no reservation. The airline says “you didn’t take the flight” and the customer says, “then how did I get here?”
More premium services on offer are better and American Airlines just announced several. It can be better to buy LAX private terminal access via American, in conjunction with a premium flight, than to buy it direct. Whether helicopter transfers represent a deal is more questionable. Both offerings have been done by competitors over the past two years.
The more innovative piece is monetizing access to their excellent Flagship lounge and dining products, which is a nice perk for those interested in paying the freight. The only downside here is increased usage.
At an employee question and answer session with American Airlines leadership this past week American’s Vice President – Planning, Vasu Raja, talked about my post about the airline’s service cuts at New York JFK. He defends focusing on flying to hubs, a limited number of international destinations, and smaller cities where they have a strong customer base.
American has withdrawn from being a player in the New York market, with each retrenchment helping to accelerate the next retrenchment. American can no longer compete for the wallet share of business customers, and is only able to pick up business on a limited set of routes. As a result customers can’t remain loyal to the carrier and pay a revenue premium to go out of their way to do so, but choose it when they represent the best choice (with their limited schedule or based on price) on a one-off basis.
Last month American said that they’ve got too much Boeing 787 capacity because Europe is seasonal, they cancelled 787 flights out of Chicago, and because they keep waiting for their joint venture with Qantas to be approved which would allow them to deploy more 787s on South Pacific routes.
Last year though American ordered 47 more Boeing 787. So what are they going to do with them?
I absolutely love the international This is Ground bags, especially the tan business class bag and the first class bag.
The transcon bags don’t feel nearly as premium and differentiating transcon business and first class bags more is a miss. Nonetheless they’re perfectly fine, and of course they’re given out on flights that usually hover around six hours, not 10 or even 14. Meanwhile the premium economy bag is nice and functional.
American Airlines executives meet with employees for question and answer sessions called Crew News. This past week an American pilot asked CEO Doug Parker about technology to connect cabin crew with all the functions of the airline to fix problems like Delta flight attendants have.
Delta flight attendants have a new update tot heir device so that they can connect and chat with ramp tower, catering, cockpit, crew schedules, passenger service and other teams. They can directly get problems addressed.
American today could have been a real player in New York. Instead the world’s largest airline doesn’t seem to know what to do – or if they should do anything at all – with the nation’s most important air city.
They don’t serve New York JFK – Zurich. They don’t serve Frankfurt. Or Munich. Or Amsterdam. Or Tel Aviv. Or.. Denver. And they keep cutting markets.
British Airways and American announced today that BA would move to American’s terminal 8 in 2022. That’s not really news, since New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said this was part of the plan back in October. However we do get new details including a bus gate for the terminal. That’s miserable.
Some are surprised by BA’s willingness to walk away from that investment, but $65 million is peanuts amortized over four years in the context of the $1 billion annually they generate on the New York – London route.
Confronted with proof that American Airlines does, in fact, offer predeparture beverages up front a spokesperson says “Safety is our highest priority and we apologise to our customers for the disruption to their travel plans, we have rebooked them on alternative flights.”
I asked what was being done for customers and was told that everyone on the flight is being offered 15,000 miles. Of course that is separate from the compensation that passengers are entitled to under EU Regulation 261/2004.
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 »
