News and notes from around the interweb:
- It’s not just customer service that’s being 86’d at American. At United, AI has claimed 8% of management jobs between cuts over the last year and cuts planned for the coming one. I expect AI to come for finance first. It does a better job reconciling accounts than people do!
AA Finance division severance ..
Staying on payroll through 1/16 and then the severance payout drops pic.twitter.com/m81MqbG9tt— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) November 10, 2025
- No matter what you thought of him as President, this is cool:
Barack Obama just surprised an entire aircraft full of veterans on Veterans Day. pic.twitter.com/HbNZQruYc6
— Brian Krassenstein (@krassenstein) November 11, 2025
- American Airlines has reinstated credits for cancelled instant upgrades.
- Indonesia not allowing more flights from major Australian cities really does harm their economy (even if it helps Garuda Indonesia and Batik Air).
How much do Aussies love Bali?
From April 2026, Jetstar will operate 101 weekly flights from Australia to Bali. That's up to 16 per day from 11 Australian airports. In total, we're counting 227 weekly flights, up to 35 per day! pic.twitter.com/i0Q1YnEIta
— Analytic Flying (@analyticflying) November 10, 2025
- When does Singapore Airlines first release award seats when their schedule loads?
- Mom Sues Qatar Airways For $5 Million After Flight Attendant Feeds KitKat To Her Allergic Toddler
I work in technology and not only is AI coming in full force it’s going to be devasting to both the people fired and the people “lucky” enough to remain. I’m hearing buzz words like “technical enabled solutions” which means rather than rely upon human expertise you will ask a chatbot. No one will care whether the chatbot actually solves your problem or answers your question. CEOs are getting wood over the idea of not paying for technology workers and have a 24/7, 365 “chatbot” instead.
So glad to be retiring by 2029. I suspect this has some role in finance reductions at AA.
“American Airlines has reinstated credits for cancelled instant upgrades.”
WOAH. Gary. Well done. The power of VFTW!
@George Romey — ‘Do You Hear the People Sing?’
@George Romey – I work in technology, too. And honestly, I look forward to our future LLM chatbots replacing the disinterested human wage slaves. They both are going to fail to help me, but the LLM is a lot faster at doing so. Ever have a chat session where it takes 5 mins for some human juggling 10+ chats to respond unhelpfully? If you can bring that latency down to 10s, that’s a win, because then I can presumably escalate to a human who is probably slightly more capable of actually assisting me.
Mostly I think the AI garbage is overblown puffery, but I do think this is one of those use cases that actually makes sense. Gary’s point about finances drones may be another use case (won’t eliminate them all, but even making a “suggestion” checked by humans would save labor).
Can I sue AA for $5 million for the food they served me on my last flight? I may not be allergic, but it sure made me sick.
What the present Administration does not destroy of the US economy, AI will. The global economy will go off a cliff.
@LadyOlives — Yup, he’s giving Nixon, Hoover, Buchanan, and Andrew Johnson a run for their money. Chaos, crimes, and indecency. We’re all worse off, except the billionaires.
TDS run amok. Yuck.
@David — T. Devotion Syndrome much? Unless you’re a billionaire, you’re getting conned like the rest of us. Hate don’t pay the bills, yo.
@1990. Correct. Hate doesn’t pay the bills. Very wise statement. Meditate on that.
BTW, the AA service center in E at DCA was staffed today.
@Thing 1 — Nah, you first. Kinda ‘woke’ of you, doncha think? You gonna tell me your pronouns next? Thing 2? 3? The culture war is a lie, bud.
The one negative about Bali is too many Aussies.
“The one negative about Bali is too many Aussies.” I’ve never been there. But, I understsnd Indonesia has some troubling laws(from my perspective) that you must trust them when they say they wont enforce it in Bali (e.g., cohabitation of unmarried couples). I visit Australia regularly. So, my one negative is a legal concern (and supporting a government with such laws).
Bots answering phones is the worst. You’re stuck in an endless loop of no help. If you don’t give the 1-2-3 answers it wants, it keeps telling you it doesn’t understand & looping back to give you a chance to enter 1-2-3 even if that is not your issue. Some of the chatbots are like this too. You have to know the ‘special word’ to use to get it to transfer you to a human. For phones, there is no special word. Anway, all this will result in people getting off the line without getting their issues solved. Possibly talking to a human (lie Indian/Filipino call center) won’t solve it either, but there’s a bigger chance. The AI will be ultra polite & deprecating about it, though (AI is an *ss-kisser). Maybe that will placate some callers when they don’t get their issue solved.
@This comes to mind — I haven’t noticed ‘too many Aussies’ anywhere but Australia. Besides, they were kinda scared for a little while after the 2002 incident, and the Bali Nine (2005-2015).