Tag Archives for vasu raja.
American Airlines Chief Commercial Officer Vasu Raja was the last guest of the season for the American Airlines internal podcast for employees. At the end of his interview, asked what’s coming in 2024, he noted that he was being interviewed solo and “there’s nobody here to tell me what I can’t say, so I’ll reveal a bit more.”
During the American Airlines third quarter earnings call on Thursday, Cowen and Company’s Helane Becker asked what percentage of customers were actually paying for premium cabin seats.
Chief Commercial Officer Vasu Raja answered somewhat ambiguously at first, but then gave numbers for their domestic route network.
Having AAdvantage in the same group as revenue management would make sense if the goal were for AAdvantage to gain access to more saver award inventory. That hasn’t been the trajectory at American, which has focused on buying seats outside of traditional saver buckets and more making additional inventory (‘web saver’) available to customers based on prevailing fares.
Instead the explanation for the move is, “Adding the AAdvantage team to this organization will make sure our AAdvantage members are able to unlock benefits across the entirety of our commercial programming.” Allowing AAdvantage members to ‘unlike benefits across the entirely of the airline’s commercial offerings’ sounds more like merchandising, monetizing the member base. Great offers can still be value-add, of course. We’ll have to wait to see how this evolves in practice.
American Airlines Chief Commercial Officer Vasu Raja laid out a new vision for the carrier, as part of the announcement of a new senior leadership team that comes with Doug Parker’s stepping down as CEO and Robert Isom taking that position at the end of March.
It’s a customer-focused vision which isn’t something we’ve seen clearly articulated at American Airlines since US Airways took over. (“Caring for people on life’s journey” is too non-specific and milquetoast to count.)
At an employee Town Hall meeting on Tuesday, November 12 at LaGuardia airport, American Airlines Chief Revenue Officer Vasu Raja shared how the airline is thinking about the New York market going forward. Here are 8 observations he offered about what’s changing for American in New York.
In an interview with Simple Flying late last month, that I only just watched in full over the weekend, American Airlines Chief Revenue Officer shared a few tidbits that I did not already know.
Vasu Raja is American’s Chief Revenue Officer. He’s risen rapidly in the organization during the pandemic. I love listening to him because he makes bold claims about the world, sometimes not entirely backed by facts or evidence. But he’s never mealy-mouthed in his assessments.
Based on an interview with Chief Revenue Officer Vasu Raja, changes to American AAdvantage seem likely to shift away from frequency and more towards revenue (remember – United awards elite status on spending and not miles flown) and to reward buying up to Main Cabin Extra or first class more than the program does today.
Mask rules hinder air travel’s recovery. American’s strength in Latin America is on the southern side of the equation. And the airline needs to think differently to succeed in earning a revenue premium.
Ultimately basic economy isn’t how American and other airlines will attract more of the travelers that are out there – it is how they will give those travelers less than they used to, in order to charge more money to people that aren’t as price sensitive.
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 »
