Tag Archives for project kodiak.
American Airlines, and in particular current Tempe management, is known in the industry for being ‘penny wise and pound foolish.’
They spend lavishly on aircraft, investing in foreign airlines, and a new corporate headquarters (now supported with $10 billion in taxpayer cash over the last 18 months) while taking short cuts on employee pay and customer experience. And it winds up costing them more money in the long run.
American Airlines failed to build a mockup of its new domestic interior, and that’s how obvious mistakes were made. In CEO Doug Parker’s telling, they cared about squeezing seats onto the plane not what it was like to sit in those seats or for employees to work the new configuration.
That’s changing for upcoming retrofits and new products like the Airbus A321XLR and Boeing 787-9 new interior.
American continues to spend money they do not have in order to squeeze more seats onto planes that they cannot sell. American is densifying aircraft to prepare for a future in which passengers demand the ability to buy more space for themselves.
That’s odd enough. Once they complete this retrofit, they go do it again to fix the flawed first class they continue to install.
Ameican created ‘Project Kodiak’ to tweak first class: Fixing row 1’s legroom, fixing underseat storage, improving separation between first and coach, and adding tablet holders and USB power to first class.
Here are the first leaked photos of the new American Airlines domestic first class.
American created ‘Project Kodiak’ to tweak first class: Fixing row 1’s legroom, fixing underseat storage, improving separation between first and coach, and adding tablet holders and USB power to first class.
Kodiak retrofits are underway. One surprise is that it appears there’s a plane with seat back video in for retrofit, ripping out TV screens. American had previously said that these planes would receive their retrofits last so that customers could keep screens as long as possible. That appears not to have been accurate.
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 »
