Posted by Seth on May 10, 2012 under Flying, Internet, News | 
American Airlines announced that they are moving forward with a retrofit of their long-haul fleet, updating the cabin interiors to improve the premium cabin experience. Mostly. The upgrades will expand the deployment of the new business class product, previously announced for the 777-300s which the company will begin receiving later this year. It will also mean the removal of the first class cabin on those aircraft, continuing a trend in both the global and the US markets to limit the long-haul premium cabin offerings to select markets with demonstrated demand. The retrofits are slated to begin in 2014.
The new business class seats will be retrofit into the carrier’s 777-200ER aircraft and into a portion of their 767-300ER aircraft. The 767-300s which are not reconfigured will be retired from the fleet.
The carrier has also indicated that their Main Cabin Extra configuration, offering an additional 4-6″ of legroom, will be part of the redesign on the 763s and 772s. On the 772s there will be 5 rows of these seats, 45 of the 215 total economy seats. On the 763s there will be only two rows of Main Cabin Extra, 14 of the 181 total economy seats. Customers holding elite status in the AAdvantage program, as well as with oneworld partners, will have access to the MCE seats.
The new cabin configuration will also include major upgrades to the in-flight entertainment systems and in-flight connectivity options. The IFE system for the 772s has impressive spec’s. It will have roughly 700 hours of audio and video available, up to 120 movies, 180 TV programs, 350 audio selections and 30 games. In business class the screens will be 15.4″ while economy will have quite generous 9″ screens. All seats on the 772s will have 110V outlets and USB plugs as well.
UPDATE: AA has confirmed that the regular main cabin seats will be 3-4-3 on both the 777-200 and 777-300ERs, and without any extra pitch. That’s going to be quite tight.
The satellite-based WiFi service will allow for global connectivity for customers. That said, no vendor has been chosen for the implementation yet so there is plenty of time for the company to see how the various options in the market shake out in the coming months, particularly as others add similar service, to pick the correct product for their fleet.
The 763 refits will not include the new IFE systems; the company will continue to rely on personal tablets for business class passengers on those aircraft for the IFE systems. The 763s will also not receive the WiFi connectivity. Combine that with the very limited MCE seating and those might just become the aircraft to avoid in the American long-haul fleet.
I’ve read through the release now a few times, looking for some hint of a magic paragraph previously missed which makes the planned upgrades tremendous. I still cannot find it. The release has many exciting phrases like “among the first in the industry” and “Business Class suite.” These plans, unfortunately, seem to be mostly playing catch-up to the rest of the industry. The “new” business class seats are based on the same product that US Airways just completed deployment of on their A330 fleet. The IFE upgrades are great, assuming you’re on the 77s; the 763s, not so much. And the seating density of the new seats raises a few red flags.
Type for type, United will offer more premium cabin seats (admittedly not all with direct aisle access) and more economy seats with increased legroom., along with a comparable IFE and connectivity scheme. And United is rolling out the seating and IFE config this year, not starting in 18 months. Delta is similarly ahead of American in the offering, both in terms of timing and product.
I have to give AA credit for trying to build a buzz about the announcements. The press conference included a number of bloggers and other social media folks, trying to tap in to the newer venues for sharing such announcements. And the bit I managed to catch on Twitter suggests that it has worked in come circles. Still, the implementation of these changes are 20 months off. It is going to be hard to keep the buzz alive that long.
There is no doubt that it is increasingly difficult to both offer a top-notch product and to do so in a manner that allows a company to remain competitive in the ever-changing market. In this case, however, it seems that American is barely even able to play catch-up, much less leap ahead. And if this is supposed to revitalize the company, inspiring creditors to ride out the bankruptcy and see a strong future for the carrier I’m very concerned about their strategy. The phrase “too little, too late” comes to mind.
For a different, and somewhat more positive, take on the new seats check out Gary’s post here; he was at the event where they were unveiled.
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Tags: American Airlines, bankruptcy, Delta, Flying, IFE, in flight, internet, OneWorld, PaxEx, United, United Airlines, upgrade, US Air
Posted by Seth on April 20, 2012 under News |
I am, once again, back at the airport headed out on a quick trip (Rio for the day, but that’s not so important to the story) and I had some time to kill prior to my flight so I headed up to the United Club (the former CO one) to check in for my flight, get my SDC processed to an earlier flight and to grab a snack. Having reasonably quickly completed those three tasks I decided to chat with some of the folks here a bit to see if there was any new news about the consolidation efforts of the split operations here. Much to my surprise, there is!
United Airlines is currently split between the A and C piers at LaGuardia. They operate two clubs and have a few dozen daily flights to Chicago, Cleveland, Denver, Houston and Washington – Dulles. The operation is one of the larger non-hub setups and there is definitely a need to consolidate the operations. The question has always been how to do that without ceding gate space that they actually need and while maintaining the number of flights they have.
The current version of the story is that operations will be consolidated into Terminal C (the legacy UA gates) as much as possible. This will include closing the old Ionosphere lounge and expanding the old Red Carpet Club. The former RCC is larger anyways and it has room to grow over the terminal and security checkpoint area. The construction effort will also bring the entrance past the security check-point, making it much more convenient for most passengers. This construction plan has supposedly already been approved by the Port Authority but I have not yet been able to confirm that.
Moving everything to the C pier will be a challenge from a gate utilization perspective. There are four gates in that pier which United doesn’t operate from; they are run by American Airlines (Eagle express flights, really) which also operates from the adjacent D pier. It is highly unlikely that AA will be looking to yield any of those gates and there aren’t many other options for shuffling things around to make them work out well. It will be interesting to see if they can juggle the schedules enough to make just those gates accommodate the demands of the flight timings.
Now it just remains to be seen if they update the signage in the terminal. There are some pretty entertaining remnants from the days of yore still visible.
Posted by Seth on April 20, 2012 under News |
US Airways has filed an 8-K statement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission indicating that they have reached agreements with the three major unions of American Airlines regarding collective bargaining terms should a merger of the two carriers be consummated. Despite many reports in the media this is not an indication that a merger has happened or even that it is imminent, but it is a very significant step in securing buy-in from the employees should a merger move forward.
From a message from CEO Doug Parker to the US Airways employees:
First of all, today’s news does not mean we have agreed to merge with American Airlines. It only means we have reached agreements with these three unions on what their collective bargaining agreements would look like after a merger, and that they would like to work with us to make a merger a reality. To get to an actual merger, many more things must happen including gaining the support of AMR’s creditors, its management team and its Board of Directors. But this is obviously an important first step along that path and we are hopeful we can all work together to make this happen.
…
Most importantly, in American’s standalone strategy, over 13,000 employees at American will lose their jobs. Our merger contemplates saving at least 6,200 of these positions. For the US Airways team, the agreements we have reached with the unions representing employees at American would also provide enhancements to the compensation and benefits currently in place here.
It is no surprise that the unions will jump at the chance to lose fewer jobs. It is somewhat surprising that they see the labor situation at US Airways as encouraging for the future of the company, particularly given the current state of the east/west divide that the company still has. But this is definitely an interesting development.
Next up, US Airways management has to convince the AMR creditors that the merger is in their best interests. The unions hold three of the nine seats on the creditor panel so this is a big step in that direction. More news as it develops…
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Posted by Seth on April 19, 2012 under News |
As part of their bankruptcy restructuring American Airlines will be closing four Admiral’s Club locations, the company has announced. The closings are happening reasonably quickly – one at the end of June and three at the end of July – and in three of the four locations there is not a partner lounge alternative on offer.
The lounge in Panama City, Panama will be closing at the end of June. With only four daily departures, all on 737-800s, apparently the necessary volume of premium customers to justify the cost of maintaining the facility wasn’t there. United Airlines and Copa jointly operate a lounge in Panama City still but that isn’t affiliated with American or its partners. No word yet on whether premium cabin passengers will be invited to use that lounge but it seems unlikely.
The July closings include the lounges at Dulles, Kansas City and Santo Domingo. Similar to Panama City, the flight frequencies do not appear to support the lounges. At Dulles there is still a British Airways Terraces Lounge so passengers can take advantage of those facilities. Santa Domingo has a lounge operated by oneworld partner Iberia which should be able to handle some overflow of customers, depending on operating hours. American currently operates the only lounge in Kansas City so there are no other options for passengers looking for such a facility.
On top of the announcement of the closing of a call center in Tucson this is not a particularly positive week for the AMR workforce.
Posted by Seth on April 12, 2012 under Flying, News |
At first blush it seems like quite a strange development. After all, why would United Airlines be hiring the regional carrier arm of American Airlines to handle operations at 8 airports across the south plus one in New York? Turns out it isn’t all that uncommon at all, and there is actually a good reason for it.
The airports in question are:
- Waco, TX
- College Station, TX
- Killeen/Fort Hood, TX
- Tyler, TX
- Monroe, LA
- Dallas Love Field, TX
- Del Rio, TX
- Beaumont/Port Arthur, TX
- Binghamton, NY
These happen to all be airports that United Express has recently been operating to with service provided by Colgan, a subsidiary of Pinnacle, the regional operator that declared bankruptcy recently and which is moving to terminate the contracts with United.
So United needs new service in those stations. The company has pulled some ERJ-135 aircraft out of storage and their ExpressJet arm is going to be operating those, but they also need folks on the ground to handle operations. And, much like outsourcing the flying, the company is also outsourcing that to another company that already has resources on the ground, namely American Eagle.
Turns out that such arrangements aren’t all that uncommon in the industry, especially in stations where there is limited service from any one carrier. That said, it does still seem a bit strange. I wonder if the American Eagle employees will learn SHARES faster/better than the legacy employees who are still struggling with it.
Hat tip to Darren @ Frequently Flying for noting the press release on this one.
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Posted by Seth on March 21, 2012 under frequent flyer, News, points |
German carrier airberlin has officially joined the oneworld alliance this week, bringing a bit of good news to the group which has seen its share of trouble the past couple months. Airberlin has been moving towards this point for quite some time, with its bilateral relationships with other alliance carriers being built up recently; now all alliance benefits will also be available.
In recognition of the carrier joining the alliance many of the members are offering double miles promotions for flights on airberlin. They generally require registration prior to flight so make sure to check the details of your program (AA promo info here) for flights between now and May 15, 2012.
Similarly, airberlin is offering a double miles bonus for flights on all other oneworld partners over the same timeframe (AB promo info here). That’s actually a rather broad promo; not too shabby.
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Posted by Seth on March 13, 2012 under Flying, News |
Washington, DC‘s National Airport is one of the "lucky few" airports in the country where the government has limited destinations which can be served. The so-called "perimeter rule" keeps the long-haul flights out at Dulles for the most part, but there are a few exceptions to rule and those are coveted by the airlines. As part of the most recent FAA budget authorization bill Congress has added a few perimeter exceptions to the pool at DCA and now airlines are scrambling to grab those slots. The filing deadline was yesterday, and here’s what the proposals look like.
New Entrants
The slots are split into two pools, one for legacy carriers and one for new entrants. In the new entrants category six carriers – JetBlue, Virgin America, Southwest, Air Canada, Frontier and Alaska Airlines have applied.
Alaska Airlines is going big with their application, hoping to offer transcon service from both their Portland, OR hub as well as San Diego. Virgin America is also hoping for hub service from San Francisco. Southwest is aiming to provide service to Austin, TX, with onward connections to San Diego and JetBlue has applied to serve both Austin and San Juan. Air Canada is hoping for Vancouver service and Frontier is looking to serve Colorado Springs.
There is some interesting overlap with the routes being requested and it seems somewhat unlikely that the DoT is going to approve such applications so perhaps the final approval will look something like this:
Legacy Carriers
For the legacy carriers the access to beyond perimeter slots comes with a slightly higher price, as they have to give up service to a destination inside the perimeter to get the new service. On the plus side, the route authorities are more or less guaranteed given that condition so the DoT has less work to do there. Of the eligible carriers, Delta, United Airlines and American Airlines all made their intentions known a couple weeks ago, with service to their Salt Lake City, San Francisco and Los Angeles hubs, respectively. Apparently US Airways has decided to not apply for an additional beyond perimeter slot. They already have service to Phoenix and Las Vegas but it is still somewhat surprising that they haven’t tried for more.
The new routes should be interesting to watch, especially with the potential for competition on the LAX and SFO routes.
Tags: Air Canada, Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Congress, Delta, DoT, FAA, Frontier, JetBlue, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Diego, San Francisco, San Juan, Southwest Airline, United, United Airlines, Virgin America, Washington DC
Posted by Seth on March 1, 2012 under frequent flyer, News, points |
I’m generally a big fan of Scott McCartney’s The Middle Seat column in the Wall Street Journal so I was excited to read his post today about "Getting the Most Out of Your Frequent Flier Miles." I was hoping for some great insight into award pricing algorithms or inventory patterns. Instead I got a primer on how to not get any value from points. Such a disappointment.
There are a number of take-aways from the post but the main conclusion is this:
With domestic coach tickets, you generally get not much more than one penny per mile in value from airlines – that’s a $250 ticket for 25,000 miles. If the ticket now costs $400, you likely will have to pay 40,000 or 50,000 miles.
Not only is it simply wrong, but it is also very misleading in terms of getting the most from your points. Other than the programs of JetBlue, Virgin America and Southwest, (and also one option from Delta or American Airlines) the redemption rates are not tied directly to the selling price of the ticket. If there are no discounted seats left it is less likely that award flights will be available at the lower rates, but that’s tied to the inventory, not to the fare price. As the prices go up at the low end it actually means that the "value" realized for redeeming points is arguably higher since the cash option will be more expensive.
McCartney also picks a few random routes and tries to read into overall domestic award inventory based on his searches for economy class seats on one carrier for each route. His approach fails miserable in many ways.
First off, it appears that the searches he performed were based only on using the website of the carrier where the miles are sitting and then by just putting in the end points. This resulted in finding only a handful of seats for Boston-Ft. Lauderdale on Delta, Orlando-Seattle on American or Washington, DC – Austin on US Airways. For the Delta results this approach overlooks the issues that their website suffers from for award bookings; it is very limited, especially when searching for connections. For American I see very different results than McCartney did, with plenty of award seats open at the "Saver" level.
Both of those are questionable, but the US Airways one is the most egregious bad advice of the three:
And if you’re in Washington, D.C., and have US Airways miles you’d like to use to go to Austin, Texas, get ready to pay a heavy price—besides the $25 processing fee that US Airways charges for a “free’’ ticket. For the 10 months in the rest of this year, there are only five days when US Airways offered a flight to Austin at its basic mileage price.
In addition to only searching on US Airways’s website, McCartney ignores the fact that Dividend Miles can be redeemed for flights operated by United Airlines. Checking the award calendar there it is clear that finding an award seat from DCA-AUS is actually a rather trivial task on most days for the rest of the year. Yes, you’ll have to call in to book it, but that’s a small penalty for saving 25,000 points.
Sorry, Scott, but you missed the boat BIG TIME on this one.
Tags: American Airlines, award, Boston, Delta, frequent flier, frequent flyer, JetBlue, points, Seattle, Southwest Airline, United, US Air, Virgin America, Washington DC
Posted by Seth on February 15, 2012 under News |
Delta has announced major upgrades to their 747 cabin interiors in both the business and economy cabins. One aircraft is already converted and the company expects all their 747s to be in the new configuration by October, 2012. The changes are significant throughout the plane, mostly for the better, but there are a couple potential negatives that come with the announcement as well.
In the Business cabin the new seats will offer flat beds and direct aisle access for all customers. The seats are from Zodiac Aerospace and are the same as those in place on US Airways A330s and Cathay Pacific’s new business class. American Airlines has also confirmed that they will be using the sets for the new business class product on their 777-300s. The seats are nice and the IFE upgrades that will accompany them – 15" screen, more than 300 films, 88 hours of television programming, nearly 100 hours of premium programming from HBO and Showtime, 27 video games and more than 5,000 digital music tracks – are certainly top notch. The layout of the seats is also nice, with both single and "paired" seats so traveling with a partner in the comfy seats won’t mean being isolated from them.
It is somewhat strange, however, that the company is claiming the seats’ 20.5" width is 20% more than the old seats. That suggests the old seats are 17" wide, which is definitely not the case, or there is some other creative math going on. The other significant downgrade that is coming with the new seats is a sharp decrease in the number available on the planes. The current configuration has 65 seats; the new configuration has only 48. That’s going to hurt folks looking for upgrades or discounted business class seats.
In the economy cabin the best news is that the same IFE system that powers the business class cabin will also be available. Other than that, there will be new, slimline seats installed in the cabin. The general idea behind the slimline seats is to provide additional knee-space for passengers without requiring additional pitch in the cabin. This allows for more customer space without removing seats from the plane. I’ve only had one experience on the slimline seats – with Lufthansa on a short flight in Europe – and they were comfortable enough but I’m not so sure how they’ll fare over a 12-16 hour trip.
Definitely upgrades to the product overall, though, like everything else, a few sacrifices to realize those improvements.
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Posted by Seth on February 9, 2012 under News |
Getting made fun of in public? Just about everyone will tell you that the best approach to the situation is NOT to go after those mocking you, especially not when the parody is actually funny. Nonetheless, American Airlines has decided to go after one of their own, bringing a 24-year veteran flight attendant in for investigation thanks to said flight attendant, among other things, sharing some pretty funny parody videos.
Never mind that Gailen has been writing about travel experiences for years, including some pretty snarky bits in the past (but all in a good way, IMO). Nope. Now is the time to go after the folks who are doing their job and doing it well. After all, firing someone with 20+ years seniority is way more effective at cutting budgets than cutting someone more junior. And when you’re facing a 20% budget cut, well, the bigger numbers start to look attractive.
This whole thing stinks. Not classy at all, AA. Not at all.
Posted by Seth on February 2, 2012 under News |
As part of yesterday’s announcement that American Airlines plans to lay off a whole bunch of employees they also issued new offer sheets to their main unions, stating their opening negotiating position for the collective bargaining contracts. The offer to flight attendants is open to the public for review and it makes for an interesting read. I’d be pretty upset as a flight attendant reading it over.
One of the most talked about bits I’ve seen is the termination of the international route pay scale. Those routes will still draw a minor additional pay bump ($1-3/hour) but not the fully separate pay scale like they do today. I can see this upsetting the FAs but I’m not so sure it is justified. The long-haul flights seem to be the better gigs, with less overall work and they’re easier to max out a monthly schedule without actually flying so many days. Those are real benefits of those trips; getting paid extra to work them seems way too favorable towards the FAs. But I can certainly see why they’re going to be upset with the change. The proposal also cuts the incremental pay that is normally accrued over 70 hours per month.
Beyond that, there are some significant changes to the work minimums that are more serious as I see it. In order to qualify for medical coverage and vacation accrual the flight attendants would be required to work 540 hours annually rather than the current 420. That’s a pretty big jump. It also increases the total minimum number of hours which must be worked annually to remain employed to 200.
The proposed rules would also significantly change the duty hours for flight attendants, making their work days longer, the number of potential hours per month higher and then guaranteed minimum time off between trips lower. Rather than being guaranteed five breaks of two days in a month they’ll get the same 10 days guaranteed, but only in one day increments. Again, all changes that are certainly going to upset the flight attendants.
The company also intends to change the staffing level assignment decisions and hotel choice policies. In both cases the policy will shift from "mutually acceptable" to company-mandated, with input from the union considered. Not a guarantee of downgrades here, but certainly there are some changes the company has in mind where there could be cuts.
Finally, the company plans to cut the pension plan, replacing it with a 401(k). They plan to cut healthcare for retirees over 65, replacing it with a Medicare supplement. The will cut life insurance for all retirees.
All these cuts and yet, when I review the term sheet, nothing in it actually seems all that unreasonable. Yes, the terms are worse than the current contract in many ways. Other than the profit sharing plan there actually isn’t really much in the way of improvements for the FAs in the offer. But it just doesn’t seem that unreasonable to me. Yeah, I know that there are many more hours worked beyond the block time. I understand commuting to the crew base. I get all of that. The numbers still just don’t seem that bad to me. Such is life, I suppose.
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