American Airlines finally realizes they need to offer a more premium product to generate more revenue. For years they focused on competing with Spirit and Frontier, and thought that their schedule alone was the product and all they needed to do was operate on-time. That turned out to be table stakes.
Planes don’t make money when they’re on the ground, so airlines want to schedule as little time between flights as possible. so cleaners board while passengers are getting off the planes and begin boarding the next flight as soon as passengers from the last one are off, “Agents should not wait for a call from the cleaners to begin the boarding process.” And cleaners are supposed to “get off the aircraft once they…see passengers starting to board.”
American’s approach has been D0 – or departing exactly on-time – yet prioritizing this over everything else hasn’t made them more on-time. However the D in D0 has also stood for dirty.
Part of the ‘premium pivot’ means paying attention to cabin maintenance and appearance, but that will entail a huge culture shift. One commenter explains just how much the airline is up against if they are to make this shift. This American Airlines employee says they were offered therapy for their insistence on getting aircraft clean between flights.
Currently work for AA at a small station, I complained that I wasn’t being given enough time to clean the planes, and was told to skip steps. I said I just wanted to do a good job, but the “no delays” mentality meant I had to do what I consider a subpar job. Was told to “not take it so personally” and that they had therapy services available. I wish I was joking.
American is adding business class suites with doors to new delivery Boeing 787-9s and retrofitting their Boeing 777-300ERs with these as well. Narrowbody A321XLRs will have suites also. But there are no announced plans to retrofit any of the rest of their fleet, which will remain a hodgepodge of different premium seats. And this decision long predates any shift to premium.
Credit: American Airlines
They are adding high speed wifi to regional jets, but they’re forced into the position because of the deprecation of the old air to ground network. They are finally building their business class lounge in Philadelphia, but Flagship lounges lag United Polaris lounges and Delta One lounges in experience.
Credit: American Airlines
So far there’s been a ‘me too, but less’ philosophy and that’s deeply engrained in the culture. They rolled out new amenity kits where much of the contents are the same in first, business and premium economy classes but it was still an improvement over cardboard boxes.
@AmericanAir come on! Really? pic.twitter.com/f1NClr1l8w
— NC Man (@NCMan2020) January 14, 2024
New lounge food similarly reflects the idea that they need to show some increased investment, but not as much as competitors.
And perhaps they’re making this pivot right as the economy becomes less able to support it, although Delta says they’ve seen no degradation in premium demand. We’ll see just how real the shift at American Airlines is, and whether they can execute and generate financial returns closer to peers.
Based on a lot of the domestic schedule a cleaning crew has maybe five minutes to clean before it’s T-35 or T-30 and boarding is due to start. More and more it seems gate agents start to board Pre Boards, CK and Group and when you get on the jetbridge you’re held while cleaners need to finish. Add in the ever growing number of wheelchairs and a lot of boardings have turned into a total cluster.
So do you want to leave on time or want a cleaner plane? I’d take the former.
Ah, an example of DARVO–Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender–a classic abusive tactic. Call it out when you sell it, all ye decent remaining folk out there.
Seriously, management needs to actually lead, pay and support their workers better, and actually serve the passengers, not just the C-suite, oligarchs, and majority shareholders. Wake up, peasants!
Yes, American Airlines needs to clean their planes to a much higher level of clean- thought it was just dumb luck when I had not so clean seat areas more than a few times but guess it wasn’t so random – rather leave five minutes later-
787’s and A350’s are engineering and technical marvels, near the pinnacle of human achievement , and airlines spend 100’s of millions of dollars to purchase them. I simply do not understand the management mindset that can take an asset like that and allow it to become trashed and filthy just because of poor management decisions. Makes me seriously wonder what other more serious things, like the engines and airframes, are also so poorly maintained on these planes. Could also say the same about the passengers that trash and disrespect the planes as well.
@jcil — Well said. On the passengers, it does come down to ‘culture’ and societal expectations. In the USA, at least, we are conditioned to be ‘rugged individualists’ who are only supposed to care about ourselves–otherwise, you’d be a commie, hippie, socialist Democrat, right? But, hey, if we want to actually take better care of ourselves, our surroundings, etc., maybe, leaders should lead that way. Like, create the incentives, encourage us to build each other up, instead of tear each other down, fight corruption instead of proliferating it, actually have accountability and transparency, and like, also, follow the money, because that’s usually the real reason. Also, Americans are not Japanese.
It’s actually quite staggering what the disconnect is between customers and the Airlines compared to other businesses. People have little idea what amenities are going to be on the plane you’re trying to select unless you go digging, and even then aircraft with headrest screens offer the poorest selection of entertainment possible. You could fit a catalog 100x bigger on the tiniest of storage, but no, you get to watch 3 random shows from a series that has 10 seasons. It seems hard to believe the people working in management at the airlines are so dense, but here we are. Even offering better food selections would make them more money. Have they compared profit from selling overpriced food to passenger revenue if trying to decide to take up two more seats with food carts? I’d love to see that data.
American’s problem is that their employees don’t provide premium customer service. It’s very simple to become a premium carrier: create a system that a customer-facing employee gets progressive discipline up to dismissal for any complaint from a premium or elite passenger. 3 strikes and you’re out. Watch your net promoter score soar when employees treat high-value customers right!
Flew from SRQ to BHM with a connection in CLT this seek on AA. The CRJ to and from BHM was filthy as was the A320 from SRQ to CLT. I tweeted to AA and noted the extremely dirty plane and they responded with ” We will let senior management know.”
Do you think senior management does not already know their planes are flying pig styes?
Gary Leff writes, “D in D0 has also stood for dirty.” When flying on American Airlines, I know D stands for any of the following: dusty, disheveled, draggled, disarranged, or disordered. Passenger behavior can be disgusting or depraved.
No pre-departure beverages are disgraceful, making AA disreputable. This dastardly, despicable, detestable airline is dishonorable and managed by degenerates. I would like to fly Delta if the AA flight crew becomes more demoralized.
@George — I think they just about ‘act their wage’—You want ‘premium’ service, then let’s support airlines whose leadership ensures ‘premium’ compensation and benefits. Are you one of those folks that yells at servers and bus boys when you go out to eat? Calling ‘em, lazy, entitled, etc.? Because, if you do, please stop that—like, you’re getting spit in your food, sir.
American is never going to be able to do “premium” and certainly not with the current leadership. I am a well trained AA customer: if there is no obvious puke on my revenue first seat, then I am happy. “You Get What You Deserve on American Airlines.” This is all a sad joke of lies to Wall Street to keep the C-Suite from being terminated. All hat no cattle to the DFW based airline.
AA management doesn’t give a rats ass about cleanliness on the plane or terminals. Even when they pretended during the scamdemic with their “clean commitment” it was a PR stunt and as big a ruse now as it was then.
It’s D-0 or bust.
I’m sure hardly cleaning the planes does wonder for employee morale. They’ll start losing the employees who actually care about the job they’re supposed to be doing to the competition.
I don’t know what it takes to get AA management to understand that clean planes matter. Passengers start wondering if other departments like maintenance is that sloppy, too.
@1990 I do not yell or get into conflicts with anyone who handles my food, thank you. American cabin crew are overpaid by global standards — over $70k median! — for a simple job. Most cabin crew at premium carriers globally are paid half that or less. At most carriers around the world, cabin crew start at $15-20k and top out at roughly double that.
If American’s overpaid cabin crew can’t provide premium service to premium passengers, they should be fired and replaced.