Starting June 9, American Airlines is telling front line employees that they will start caring about the quality of their product.
American faces significant financial underperformance and – given their high costs, and customer preferences – need to become more premium in order to earn greater revenue. Management belatedly realizes this. Do they know how to do it?
They used to focus only on exact on-time departures (but without making the investments necessary to achieve them). The message from the top was that avoiding even two minute delays was the only priority. In CEO Robert Isom’s consistent messaging, when the flight is on time ‘the food tastes better, the seats seem comfortable.’
However, as I have written for years, reliability turns out to be table stakes. Customers care about the total experience. the product is more than just the schedule – merely having flights isn’t enough, what those flights are like matters.
It used to be that flight attendants complained if they called over missing first class catering on a long haul flight, managers would be yelling at them from the top of the jet bridge. And they might have to account for it later.
Effective June 9, American says they will begin to pay attention to cabin appearance (but to achieve this they need planes to have more time on the ground for cleaners to clean). They will care that catering is loaded. They will care that flight attendants follow service standards. I already posted that American will be revamping its buy on board program.
Here’s the memo that went out on Friday:
The problem here is the messaging.
- It comes to flight attendants from two middle manager (Managing Directors) while past narratives from the CEO have been they they are primarily competing with low cost carriers and shouldn’t spend any extra money.
- It begins with a veiled threat – that their model for consistent service will be their punitive attendance program where taking sick time when you’re ill (and contagious!) earns discipline points.
- There is no vision offered about what they are trying to accomplish, nothing about the stakes involved or how cabin crew fit in. There are no rewards for delivering on outstanding service.
This is a start, and good to see that they will begin to focus on delivering a consistent and clean product. But the CEO needs to lead, get out in front of the front line, and serve as an evangelist. Can Robert Isom do that?
AA flights are understaffed and their employees are totally unsupervised.
The content of this memo won’t change a thing.
@ R D Huestis
Singapore Airlines manages it’s onboard crews as if it were a small business.
On each flight there is an in-flight supervisor (who is distinguishable from the purple accents of their dress or tie) who has the overall responsibility for service delivery, helped by a chief in each cabin (wearing red accents) and by leads (green accents) and regular FAs (blue accents). Everyone, including informed passengers, know their role and expextations.
AA management can negotiate the same if they want. They can also train FAs better: most AA FAs in long haul business class don’t have a clue about the wine they’re serving other than the color (“white” or “red”) and maybe the nation (useless), while on SQ FAs will be well versant and there will always be one onboard who will have had extra training in wine and spirits they can summon or rely upon.
It’s the small things that matter (as anyone who forgot to wish a happy anniversary to his or her spouse can attest).
Even though a child, I remember the service of Pan Am Airways. Real utensils (yeah, 911 changed that permanently), wonderful meals, and service from a caring attendant. Never did we feel cramped like today’s travel. The airline that actually puts the flyer first and employees second will have my undivided attention.
The CEO needs to lead from the front lines? That’s pretty hard when he is flying private jets! Absolutely clueless!
They should start now this way they can get as many of the kinks worked out in time for the jump off date in June. Every airline has its bad apples. Some are worse than others. Get rid of the worse and focus on fixing the others. I just flew UAL from New Orleans to Newark. The contact I had with the agents at the airport to the flight attendant’s were perfect. Not to mention the plane was as clean as can be and the food was delicious. The plane left on time and landed early. Upper management needs to get middle management to be held accountable for issues/delays. When front line employees are treated well then things can be surprisingly done and done well.
I haven’t flown AA for years and I will never fly them if I have a choice. They used to be great. Now they are one of the worst of the legacy carriers.
I suggest giving passengers cleaning materials and ask them to clean their seats, tray table, etc. They can pass paper towels and disinfection spray to each other while flight attendants monitoring!
AA has somehow managed to end up with high costs but low morale and low customer service, something that you really have to screw up consistently to achieve. To expect passengers to pay high prices for service just a step above Frontier is unrealistic. What is AA doing to set itself apart from the budget carriers, especially with Southwest introducing extra legroom, power at every seat, assigned seats, larger overhead bins, employees with ties, and probably next will be first class and pay for bags? AA needs to add more first class seats, make their coach seats more comfortable, and for God’s sake, put in seatback entertainment! If they don’t do the latter, they will NEVER get close to profitability like Delta and United have.
The people on here leaving comments about AA planes being old don’t realize that AA has the newest planes, and Delta has the oldest planes. That being said, cleanliness and upgrades of the seats, especially seatback entertainment, make a big difference in how old the plane feels. If you ask people who has the newest planes, I doubt AA would come out the winner. Again, a monumental waste of billions of dollars because they go on the cheap with the little things after spending billions on planes. Truly stupid.
This hardly a shock.. remember American Airlines is just America West 3.0 in disguise.. America West being the first attempt at a ULCC/Allegiant type carrier and getting the moniker America Worst.
I tire of the union bashing. To believe that employees consciously consider or reflect, “Hey I won’t get fired doing this…” with each moment is ludicrous. Attorneys have a union as do physicians.
Management is busy outsourcing jobs to other counties, specifically their IT jobs, so that the top leadership can make more. They have little time to focus on the end product.
Why does it have to be 90 days from now? Efficiency, taking care of broken and unsightly fixes, and cleanliness is a given. Be competitive. Bring back seat back monitors, free WiFi, build up global hubs that aren’t hit with major weather issues like LAX. It seems like passengers and crews are getting stuck everywhere with minimal connecting times. Introduce more offerings and bring back staff for better service. It’s been one bad decision after another with this management.
If AA wants it’s cabins cleaned by station personnel and still depart on time, they will have to sacrifice their policy prohibiting cabin appearance leads who are white from giving direction to any non-white employee. Most ridiculous thing I have ever seen is a bunch of AA vest wearing employees sitting at a gate and telling their supervisor they were a racist for making them work. You know, by making everyone work, AA might be more profitable too.
Nothing will change if upper management and executives aren’t held as accountable as front line workers.
The fish stinks at the head…its not the employees but the management
I’ve flown AA a lot, nearly 2 million miles. There definitely needs to be a balance between making sure flights are on time, and making sure the best possible services are provided during the flights. One FYI thing that I’ve noticed on several recent shorter flights is that there seems to be a trend where the pilot announces that turbulence is expected during the flight, and that the flight attendants will be asked to remain seated during the flights; and then for the entire 1 hour or 1 1/2 hour flight, there’s absolutely no turbulence and no service. Also during short 1-hour flights, with no turbulence anticipated, some flight attendants say they will only be offering water since the flight is so short, where there was one flight attendant that actually brought out the entire cart to offer the full service of beverages (showing by example that a full beverage service is possible, where most flight attendants just choose not to do it). I’ve also noticed in general, that many workers across many different companies just don’t seem to have the work ethic that was more commonplace years ago. Hopefully some strategy can be implemented to make everything better!
AA domestic 1st class is a bad joke. Poor seats and even worse food. Only so much FA’s can do with what they are provided with. AA needs to seriously think about what position they want to occupy in the market. Do they want Spirit or Frontier level of poor quality/service or something better?
Just traveled with AA. I’m not usually this type of person to pledge things like this but never again will I fly AA. The legroom is absolutely atrocious and customer service is insulting. When our international flight was delayed, they opened a line for rebooking and proceeded to move this line to 4 different counters in about an hour and a half with over 100 people in line. This upset the entire group of fliers more than the delay itself. Not to mention them loosing our bag, not reimbursing the full amount of our measley $150 in replacement purchases while waiting for bag to be delivered or to mention a valuable item being stolen from the bag. On the same trip we flew with Emerite and flew back on Japan airlines. Now that’s how airlines should operate.
Mark J. says:
March 10, 2025 at 4:21 am
If AA wants its cabins cleaned by station personnel and still depart on time, they will have to sacrifice their policy prohibiting cabin appearance leads who are white from giving direction to any non-white employee. Most ridiculous thing I have ever seen is a bunch of AA vest wearing employees sitting at a gate and telling their supervisor they were a racist for making them work. You know, by making everyone work, AA might be more profitable too.-
Hey Mark- maybe the better question to ask is, how is it all of the appearance leads are white when they could clearly find non white staff for other roles?? Mathematically it’s impossible to have that demographic %,which denotes there’s intentionality in that action. So maybe AA should focus on that, because it’s likely sowing resentment in its onboard staff.
Who proofread this article? I had a hard time following it because it is so badly worded and full of mistakes.
Management will never admit how bad they suck so they try and pass the blame to others saying it’s workers fault for mechanical issues for planes over flown and no time to fix anything.. yep workers fault… catering issues when workers just use what’s available to them try and get the items they need before take off… oh we have to leave on time!! Executive platinum doesn’t get his meal writes bad letter to company how he didn’t get his meal they give him 5000 points and blame the flight attendants… this management has sucked disincentive day 1 outsourcing everything why AA is sooooo terrible now.. USAIR is the issue.. I remember specifically when AA and usair were stand alone companies and AA was constantly in top 3 where usair ALWAYS LAST!! Now they merge usair destroys AA now again always last and blaming their employees… no matter what they try and do it won’t work! Until management is fixed bring back AA managers AA will always be last! What they need to do also give time so mechanics and fix planes!
The entire flight experience has degraded so much since 9/11 that we dread the one or two flights we take annually. By the time you spend nearly two hours waiting in the exceedingly uncomfortable gate areas…listening to crackly intercoms… you are in no mood for dealing with passengers who are permitted to carry on oversized bags and/or several extra items. The seating is so cramped that if the person seated in front of you reclines their seat it actually extends over your knees. Even first class, which we fly about half the time, is nothing like it used to be. And it is certainly not worth the extra $1000 per person. Something has to be done. We are ready to switch to Delta.
TWA had great service they need to take a page out of their book when it comes to customer service. I can start with removing the screens made the flights feel less premium. Food only in first class, attitudes from FA, outlets not working etc.
AA Flight crew are consistently understaffed. PRE-covid staffing is non-existent.
SERVICE IS NOT taught in initial training. There is zero consistency in service. DUMB teaching DUMB. Bring back the “Chaser” program where he proper training is taught in every cabin. International is a joke & Hawaii is the worst service & product imaginable. People save a lifetime to go to Hawaii. A premium destination & AA is the biggest embarrassment of any major airline.
You can’t do a good service when no one knows how to provide a good service, minus the tools to do that good service = horrible service!
FYI
BEFORE the last merger their was once a program, not at Legacy AA. The little Airline that could (HP). Those little Above and Beyond certificates, which one never sees anymore……were valuable to employees. What is Above & Beyond? You don’t see it anymore because those certificates are a joke when they are handed out. A compliment means nothing these days! Long ago 10 of these would get you a positive space ticket anywhere in the system. Then they stripped that away and threw them into a lottery for prizes up to $10,000 taxed at 50%. Now if you bother registering them? You get a 100 points towards purchasing a bunch of junk.
There is zero incentive to give a good service. Well you can’t give a good service without the staffing, training or proper service tools anyway.
It used to be you had great benefits to work at an airline . Non-revving is a joke & Seniority gives you zero in that area. A new employee can bump a 40 year employee on a flight. Insurance is horrible. Just give them 2 positive space tickets per year and call it a day, so they can at least go on vacation somewhere.
Our 1st class flight from CLT to SFO on Jan. 7 was exceptional 1st Class! Super clean and comfortable cabin, fantastic service, even made to order ice cream sundies!
Return 1st class flight Jan. 29….. Horrid! Dirty old plane, lazy Personel, horrible presentation of food, even had the cabin Personel reading their phones instead of offering beverages or clearing trays.
After returning from SE Asia on Singapore Airlines, AA could learn much even from Singapores premium economy for 1st class
Imagine if Luigi had been a member of American’s frequent flyer program.
I’m not usually one to post negative comments but my wife & I have flown our last AA flight (electively). We were recently caught up in the weather delay from the big storm Feb 16 in PHL & missed our flight to Rome. Weather happens, it’s inevitable. But those of us delayed on international flights went to the convenience desk for concourse F, &, after standing in line for over an hour one of the 3 agents announced to the 60-70 of us in line “this desk closes at 9:30 (it was 9:40 pm). All of you in line will need to go to the customer service desk in concourse B.” When we all arrived at the desk in concourse B there was easily 150-200 people in line, only 3 agents, & no manager apparent or anyone updating us in line. I have a photo of the line should anyone from AA care to see it. After standing in line until almost midnight without the line advancing or any updates my wife & I got a hotel room. The app was locked up probably overwhelmed with traffic & the 800 help line had me on endless hold. I understand that weather happens & this was a Sunday night, but we were literally left to fend for ourselves. And to close a help desk when there are literally hundreds of stranded passengers is an incomprehensible gaffe. The complete lack of managerial staff making an appearance is the opposite of even marginally competent “all hands on deck” damage control. AA wasn’t responsible for the storm but their management of the consequences could’ve been better managed by group of 8th graders, & that may be an insult to the 8th graders.
You missed a piece of analysis. The memo pushes policy compliance but not individual initiative and authority. From a career in admin and writing about admin, that’s a big red flag. Yes, knowing and following policy is important for a foundation of consistency. But many environments are so complex and subject to novel problems that policy cannot possibly cover what is BOUND TO HAPPEN. Airline operations fit this definition. A paradigm built on “we’ve thought of everything; just follow the policy” will fail. Given that airline failures can happen to 200 people at once, or be witnessed by 200 people, paradigms that force wrongheaded “solutions” demanded by policy over intelligent decision making at the staff level fail spectacularly. And if the management response (openly expressed or silently thought) is, “We can’t trust our staff with that,” then management doesn’t know the first thing about management and should be fired.
AA is an embarrassment to the USA, totally lacking in professionalism and accountability for the thousands of missed flight connections and bumped flights with no recompense to ticket holders for days of being stranded. I will never fly AA again.
First Class service is terrible unless you are traveling out of The USA.
They always find the way to skip food service, most of the time they blame to a turbulence.
I just flew AA 2 weeks ago. It was awful. I have had better service on Southwest! AA should be embarrassed.
I can see no one read the internal document based on the comments. I don’t think Gary even understood it. Could he he knew everyone would just read the headlines and run with it. This shows that additional staff will he added to help mitigate these problems as they occur. It is to support inflight ops. Do people really have this much trouble with reading and comprehending? Or is Gary so into rage baiting that he knows the rubes will carry on the bashing?
As a regular AA flier I have noticed a trend. After the new flight attendant contract was signed the pre departure drinks started right back up again. Now, it seems after the last 8 flights I have been on none were served what so ever. Plenty of time at the gate and the agents just weren’t interested at all in providing service. It’s a shame I am a huge AA fan and have been a loyal customer for years. When the service continues to remain at the bottom what incentive do fliers have to keep flying them? Even though my work travel is based on 3 of their hub locations I am seriously considering switching to UA or DL to at least get someone back from my loyality.
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. They earned this reputation with poor management practices, and a dumb policy position.
Oh, THAT is why the FA “lady” in economy screamed at a 17 yr for having earbuds in during safety song and dance.
She is allowed to do that today.
My how the America West standards have fallen.
All of these are things AA has outsourced to the lowest bidding company. When actual AA employees did this job they did so with pride.
Now you have low paid contract employees that you barely give enough time to pick up trash before passengers start boarding. Windows and tray tables used to get cleaned.
This is classic quintessential executive ignorance they’re just too far away from the issue and so whatever they’re told by the people in between is what they go off of so they come down way too hard with completely the wrong attitude. Flight attendants are not the issue. I never see them be anything but super nice to everyone (even when those people absolutely do not deserve it in any way).
The issue is that the seats themselves are horrifically bad, something flight attendants have no control over, and the cabins are gross, which the FAs also don’t really have control over they don’t have the time to do the things that would be necessary but like every couple days you should ground a plane for a bit and have somebody clean it like thoroughly deep clean that shi
Dear God this is not hard. There are legitimately only five things middle-class America wants. Two free checked bags. Stop making the seats smaller. Free soft drinks and a snack of some sort. Don’t overbook the flight and leave your customers up sh*t creek. And for the love of all that is pure and holy, allow enough time on the ground to empty the septic holding tank so that the bathroom is usable. This isn’t hard. This isn’t complicated. But nobody wants to do it.
The flight attendant industry is a classic example of how DEI is an absolute failure. The quality of flight attendants has dropped off tremendously over the past 20years. Professionalism has dropped way off.
The reward for outstanding service ?? Is your PAYCHECK!
Should have done ages ago. AA’s servie is almost alwasy bad, even on U.S carrier’s standard. They just deliver food and won’t bother to do anything else. These people are just like those Federal employess, do nothing and wait for retirement. The best way to do so is to fire mos of them and hire back.
Wow, but who cares about all the acaa violations.. or the fact that one can not sue when their rights are violated
@Anne best comment of the day!!
Just spent 11 days dealing with cancelations and delays with this poorly run airline. As I’m writing this I am awaiting to board a plane that was supposed to leave at 6:50 pm. It is now 8:40 pm and we don’t seem to be any closer to boarding than we were an hour ago. Perhaps the layers of management for this inept airline should be put in the Frontline to see if they can improve their miserable srrvice?