Tag Archives for american airlines.
An American Airlines passenger flying from Dallas Fort Worth to Los Angeles took another passenger’s bulkhead seat and refused to give it up. He argued that it was his by right as a result of his U.S. citizenship. Defying flight attendants requests to move, all passengers were eventually deplaned in order to get him off the aircraft peacefully.
Initially the flight delay was due to maintenance. A passenger reports that it was a “door issue.” Mechanics responded, and it appears that maintenance determined they could defer fixing the issue. The captain, though, told passengers he wouldn’t fly the plane in that condition.
After a crazy lobbying process, Delta Air Lines achieved a partial success is getting the federal government to approve new ‘beyond perimeter’ slots at Washington’s National Airport.
Now there’s jockeying over which airlines will get the slots, and Delta is pushing to keep one out of the hands of American Airlines.
American Airlines let go Chief Commercial Officer Vasu Raja, architect of their strategy of chasing award managed business travel. His thesis had been that they were going to fill their planes, and didn’t need to offer companies discounts. They’d make more money, and do so at a lower cost – without the sales teams and special customer service to service those accounts.
Now they’re backtracking on this strategy.
What they lack is – in some sense – fixable by a management who sweats the small stuff to deliver an outstanding customer experience and who articulates a vision that aligns employees with a shared goal to deliver on that experience.
There are (13) things that I believe about American Airlines, from customer experience to business strategy, and they help explain both the outsized potential of this airline to be great and the decisions holding them back.
Each Saturday morning Adrian Waltz pulls new flights added and flights removed from airline schedules and this week he found something really interesting from American Airlines.
Video from inside the cabin shows a flight attendant yelling at passengers not to take their carry-on bags, and even arguing with a passenger over whether or not he needed to go at all. Passengers can be seen remaining seated. Overhead bins are open. And you can even see people still reaching in to grab their bags, even as they’re being told not to – and to get off the plane! This is literally insane.
American Airlines will drop its third daily Los Angeles – London Heathrow roundtrip effective with the start of the IATA winter season on October 27, 2024. They will also suspend service from Phoenix to London Heathrow for the winter season, from October 27, 2024 through March 28, 2025. These changes will load into the schedule this weekend.
Vasu Raja staked out bold positions. He felt too strongly that the airline’s schedule was its product – rather than its service and experience. He architected their Sun Belt focus and shift away from managed travel. And he elevated the centrality of the carrier’s loyalty program as part of its core business strategy and not just as a financial instrument.
American Airlines flight 2045 from San Francisco to Miami was forced to evacuate due to a fire inside the aircraft cabin on Friday.
The Airbus A321 was boarding for its trip to Miami at 12:15 p.m. when smoke reportedly filled the cabin, and crew evacuated the aircraft. Passengers exited via both emergency slides and the still-attached jetbridge.
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 »
