Tag Archives for american airlines.
A federal court sided with the Biden Administration’s Department of Justice, ruling that the American Airlines-JetBlue partnership should be broken up on anti-trust grounds. It’s an odd conclusion, but the ruling itself is fascinating reading. It contains great details about how the deal evolved between the two airlines.
It’s believed that the contract is for four years, with pay rates comparable to Delta’s new deal (which we’ve already expected and the company had publicly committed to) and some improvements for pilots on scheduling (limitation on the kinds of trips the company can require pilots to work).
Delta’s pilot contract costs it $7 billion more over the course of four years. The exact costs to American isn’t yet clear because the details haven’t been released – although the increase likely wipes out the carrier’s current run rate of profits.
American Airlines has a new rating system for gate agents, ranking each one on a five star scale. Based on details from multiple agents, this rating system includes everything related to the flight – including things they have no control over whatsoever. If they touch a flight that delays, that’s on them, even when it’s a maintenance delay.
The Association of Flight Attendants has told its members to prepare for a strike vote. This riles up the members, and makes it sound like the union is militant, when in fact they’re continuing to negotiate with the company and if all continues to proceed apace they won’t end up in a strike.
This is the union playing politics with its own members, not against the company.
The pilot union has taken a strike authorization vote, but isn’t legally permitted to strike because they haven’t received federal permission to do so (and that would only come after a 30 day ‘cooling off period’). Pilots are getting frustrated over the time it is taking to get to a contract, though the airline has publicly committed to substantial raises.
Some pilots do not want to wait, and are suggesting taking matters into their own hands. The mistake they’re making, though, is putting this in writing – and the union, therefore, has taken steps to disavow it.
When your flights are cancelled or substantially delayed, and the airline can’t get you where you’re going, sometimes you’re willing to… fly somewhere else. If you’re flying cross-country, you might even take something hundreds of miles away from your destination, if the trip is important enough. Maybe you’d fly to Los Angeles instead of San Francisco and drive.
An interesting question is, what if anything does an airline owe you if you do actually fly – but don’t fly where you were trying to go?
A dad and his 13 year old daughter flying American Airlines from Seattle to Charlotte last week were shaken to their core when law enforcement met them on arrival. The flight’s crew had radioed ahead to report him as a suspected sex trafficker.
The pair were traveling to the man’s oldest daughter’s graduation. The first time he noticed something amiss was during the flight when he got up to use the lavatory.
Retired British hedge fund executive Robert David Croizat mentioned in the Panama Papers scolded an American Airlines flight attendant, saying they “should have addressed him in a better way when giving him the choices for his meal” and demanded to see the captain because there were only vegetarian options on board flight 1192 from Bridgetown to Miami on on March 8.
After his aggressive behavior towards crew, including pinning one of the flight attendants against the cockpit door, the man was overpowered by another passenger and forced into his seat.
American Airlines has a new system for automatically rebooking passengers when their flights are delayed or cancelled. It’s more powerful than what they’ve used before, but there’s also the potential to cause problems for passengers who would have made their flights – passengers who may come in off of a delayed flight, run through the airport hoping to make their connection, and find that even though the door is still open for their next flight their seat has been given away.
There are times you need to fix the name on a ticket, and times you need to change the name on a ticket altogether. Here’s the latest guidance from American Airlines on how to make this happen.
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 »
