Tag Archives for american airlines.
After each quarterly earnings call American Airlines leadership gathers with employees for a ‘State of the Airline’ in which Doug Parker opens with an update on the airline and then opens the floor to questions. One of the most popular subjects is route planning – where will American Airlines fly? – and so Vasu Raja, the airline’s senior vice president of network planning, fields many of the questions.
This week – through Friday, November 1 – American Airlines is testing a new ice cream bar as a snack on two of its London Heathrow flights. That’s right, economy class passengers get an ice cream bar and it’s made exclusively for American Airlines, according to an internal company memo.
Checked baggage is always ‘at risk. American Airlines is now reimbursing a Tulsa passenger for $1000 after her lost luggage turned up on Facebook Marketplace, being sold by a baggage worker there. The passenger had them ‘dead to rights’ too – the bar code on the new Patagonia jacket being sold matched her receipt for the purchase, she says.
American Airlines has just announced two new flights to New Zealand – Dallas Fort Worth – Auckland and Los Angeles – Christchurch. Since Air New Zealand abandoned its non-stop U.S. – Christchurch flying this will be the only flight between the U.S. and New Zealand’s South Island.
Both flights are non-daily and seasonal, and add to American’s seasonal service between Los Angeles and Auckland (which will see a slightly expanded winter 2020-2021 season starting October 7).
American Airlines has added a second daily Dallas Fort-Worth – Rome flight for a limited summer season, July 2nd through August 17. That’s a peak of peak travel period.
While the pre-existing daily flights, AA239 and AA240, appear to rarely if every offer award or upgrade space (as we have come to expect from American Airlines), this new flight appears to have upgrade but no award space open every single day and indeed open with enough seats for the whole family.
American’s new overhead bins have enough space for each passenger on a full plane to bring a standard-sized carry on bag on board, which means passengers shouldn’t have to gate check their bags. That’s great for passengers, and also for the airline because gate checking can cause delays.
With more bags inside than before, the overhead bins can get heavy and difficult to close. It turns out there’s a trick to it.
Customers flying first class on regional jets have traditionally been given a ‘yellow tag’ for their carry on. The purpose is so that those bags get priority.
Starting November 11th these yellow tags will become an Executive Platinum and ConciergeKey benefit. Instead of just being available to first class passengers (on regional jets with first class), they’ll also be a top tier elite benefit when those customers are flying coach.
American Airlines is looking to reduce the cost of delivering checked checked bags – and as a result
they are “in the process of reviewing” their policy of standby free of charge (or for a fee) for elite customers who have checked bags.
With this change – reversing the benefit American trumpeted a decade ago that one way awards would never cost more than half a round trip – there was no press release.
Nonetheless it makes sense in the new world American AAdvantage has put itself in. Paid roundtrips are still sometimes less expensive than two one ways for international travel. It’s not surprising that awards would mirror this.
American Airlines released third quarter earnings and held their earnings call this morning. The carrier reported $557 million in pre-tax income for the quarter.
Their 4.6% pretax margin during the peak summer third quarter is weak. However CEO Doug Parker kept his job through the quarter and that’s the biggest victory for this management team after alienating employees, shareholders, and customers.
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 »
