Tag Archives for american.
Dropping to 20 or 24 business class seats would make awards and upgrades super difficult on the aircraft (awards are nearly impossible now in business class as it is).
It would represent a loss of 14% or 28% of the business class seats on the aircraft. In contrast United’s Boeing 787-8s have 36 business class seats.
American Airlines and Los Angeles television station KTLA are running a giveaway. It’s a trip to New York ‘like an A-Lister’ and my first thought was they’re encouraging Southwest Rapid Rewards status challenges.
The contest reveals the airline’s view of the devaluation of AAdvantage.
Virgin America offers padded leather recliner chairs in first class with foot rests and 55 inches seat back to seat back. That’s incredibly generous for most domestic routes. American is shrinking their first class from a ‘generous’ 38 inches for their new domestic standard product.
However it’s not competitive on premium cross country routes where American, Delta, United, and jetBlue all offer flat beds in business class.
Passengers protest an American Airlines 15 hour delay in Miami chanting a demand for hotel rooms in Spanish.
The lesson here is simple — and it isn’t specific to American Airlines, the same situations arise with any airline — book your flights with a premium credit card that comes with trip delay coverage. Get your own room and send the bill to your credit card company.
A recent study found that airline check-in kiosks are the least hygienic part of the airport.
So I decided to find out about each airline’s cleaning regimen for kiosks. Or lack of cleaning regimen.
Kerry Philipovitch, American’s Senior Vice President of Customer Experience defends the idea of Basic Economy fares in the latest “Tell Me Why” podcast aimed at the airline’s employees.
She says that without Basic Economy “we’re going to see our most price sensitive travelers leave us” — as though stripped down fares are necessary to offer low fares, and even though immediately after she explains that American had been offering fares that match ultra low cost carriers before Basic Economy.
American Airlines has myriad aircraft in different configurations from legacy American Airlines decisions before the merger and from US Airways, and a series of individual decisions along the way. Customers can luck out with better aircraft for passenger experience and worse aircraft.
They’re making efforts to standardize the fleet where they can, and that means the 13 Boeing 777-200s with 45 business class seats will each be losing 8 seats up front.
Earlier in the week I wrote about the pretty outrageous domestic first class fares the EPA Administrator travels on. He’s loyal to Delta even when the federal government has awarded a city pair contract to another airline. And he pays full fare first even for the Delta Shuttle between New York and DC.
There’s been much hand wringing though over his flying Emirates business class Milan – New York in June. That’s wrong. Here’s why.
I’m driven nuts by upgrade issues like American Airlines agents not handing out upgrades to passengers who aren’t waiting in the gate area or not bothering to process upgrades at the gate because they’re too busy (so first class seats go out empty while passengers on the upgrade list sit in back).
Most of the time though what looks like shenanigans turns out to have a perfectly logical explanation on closer inspection.
Business class awards on Cathay Pacific between New York JFK and Hong Kong are wide open starting in August and running through end of schedule. Space beyond Hong Kong is generally very nicely available.
Now’s the time to lock in those business class awards to Asia for later in the year.
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 »
