I have unintentionally caused some offence with one of my statement in this post. You will see this reflected in the comments. I have updated it in an attempt to better explain what I clearly messed up saying.  I want to say on the outset that I am opposed to discrimination on any basis. I also unreservedly apologise to those people who were concerned I might be advocating age discrimination. My major feeling, which I have hopefully explained n a better way, is as a customer the attitude I have experienced from key personnel. Now read on and I hope you find the rest of the post interesting!

American Airlines are currently my least liked US airline. I dread flying with them normally. I continue to argue that it a toss up as to who is worse? American or United? I keep hoping my next flight with them will show some signs of improvement.

Booking- 6 out of 10

One of the annoying things about American is that they have removed the ability to make online bookings from any website but theirs. This makes it difficult to compare flights or have additional options, I can understand that it suits American but its not customer friendly. The American website itself is a little more complicated to navigate than I would like. Seat selection was straight forward.

Check in – 6 out of 10

Online check in required me to add all of my personal information. At the end of the process, the system advised me it could not check me in and I would need it to do it at the airport.

At JFK, a group of AA staff were animatedly chatting at the Check in desk . I was first in the Priority line but had to wait 3 or 4 minutes until I was noticed and called forward. She was very friendly and said to me as she laughed: “sorry about the union meeting“. I could not hear the details of the discussion but it was definitely very concerning for the group. I feel for AA staff. Whenever, I fly with them, they appear to be some of the most unhappy employees of any airline company. Check in, after that, was very fast. I received the seat I had chosen when I booked on-line which always pleases me.  I was not offered directions to the lounge.

 Lounge – 5 out of 10

The Admirals Club at JFK is big and the welcome was friendly. I was given a voucher for a free drink. (Being the USA, Tips are expected for a drink at a a bar).  I had a shower which was very refreshing. Free food consists of apples, biscuits (cookies). All other food is to be paid for and its not that great. Wireless was free and easy to access.

Boarding – 9 out of 10

The Boarding was very smooth. We got a warm welcome at the door.  On board, things were a little more chaotic. The woman sitting next to me was clearly a little disappointed that I had arrived as she had spread her stuff across two seats! The plane was fairly full and there was a lot of luggage! One woman simply abandoned her roll on  in the bulkhead row and went to her seat down the back of the plane. The flight attendants had  to search the plane for the passenger and make her carry her bag down to her seat area. She was very reluctant to do this. I have never seen this before.

On Board- 6 out of 10

American has a dreadful economy layout on their 777s consisting of 2 seats/5 seats/2 seats. Others, I know,  like it because most seats are only one seat away from the aisle. I just feel sorry for the people trapped in the middle seat.  Seat pitch in the 190 Economy class seats is a surprisingly generous 32″. Width 18 or 18.5″. I was in seat 20A in the front bulkhead row so had more leg room but an obstructed window.

A tiny pillow and a small blanket with headset was included on each economy seat.

The 37 angled Business lie flat beds offer  57 to 60″ and 20″ width while  First has 92″ pitch and 21″ width.

The flight attendants on this flight were actually very, very friendly and helpful.  One of the FAs confided in me that the average length of service on the flight was 40 years because of the way crew bid for flights. One of my major concerns is that my experience as a customer of some entrenched AA employees has not been a great one. Many FAs have come across to me as tired, frustrated and negative. I understand that they have not had a good experience of AA management and have held fears for their wages, benefits and pensions for years.  But the result on many flights I have been on has been a sense that the customer is resented. I mentioned to one once that I had retained my Platinum status for another year and he exploded: “I am sick of you platinums thinking  that you own us”.  I am not saying American needs to dump their staff when they reach 30 but I have concerns what message a negative long term workforce send to the public about the airline’s relevance, safety and contemporary-ness?

We had turbulence on the way out of  JFK and it hung around with us for most of the flight. The seat belt sign did not go off for a very large component of the trip.  My seat companion took her seat belt off fro most of the flight. Some people do not realise the impact a severe turbulence episode can have. Thankfully she didn’t fly out of her seat.

Entertainment 4 out of 10

American Airlines have an interactive entertainment system -of sorts. In theory I should be happy with it. However, the offerings are every spares. The most extensive selection: Comedy had only one episode of eight different shows. The Action channel had only the first and second episode of Terra Nova. There were eight movies.

Safety Briefing 8 out of 10

The video showing the safety procedures was repeated twice and started a  third time. Crew accompanied it for the first time.

Meals 3 out of 10

We were offered a drink followed by meal service. Choices were Tortellini or Chicken, I chose the Tortellini. The meal was was very salty.  It was accompanied by dry bread roll, a salad which was almost entirely wilted brown lettuce and a little tomato, crackers, cheese and an okay caramel brownie.  Meal service was interrupted by very sever turbulence. Meal service was discontinued. It resume after a short while.

Breakfast was of course woeful.

For a $1400 airfare, a little more effort  could  be made. Have a look at Emirates? One of the things that impresses me about Emirates  (my favourite airline in the world) is their amazing meals – both quality and quantity wise. Assuming the cost difference between a terrible meal delivered by American and a very good one delivered by Emirates is $15  - that would work out at around $3000 per flight. If they increased the fare by that $15 and wowed customers with the food, what would that do to their reputation? Surely that payoff would be worth it?

Landing

We had a very smooth landing almost half an hour early into a grey Buenos Aires. I was off the plane and into the terminal in a record time.

The Verdict

My rating: Overall 60% (3 out of 5)- my overall rating of  American Airlines flights: 3.0 (based on 46 flights)

Skytrax Rating of American Airlines: 3 star

Positives:   Safe arrival, early arrival, friendly staff,

Negatives: Meals, Lounge, Entertainment, Check in

Would I fly them again?  Reluctantly

My last trip Report: April 24th, 2012 Virgin Australia A330 Per – Syd Business

Etihad, the Abu Dhabi based airline has won for the third year in a row the award of World’s Leading Airline 2011. Check out of the video of the awards.

The award was previously won by Singapore in 2008. Prior to that British Airways had gained the award every year from 1994 to 2007 with the exception of 2003 when Virgin Atlantic won.

Other winners are listed here: http://www.worldtravelawards.com/winners2011-1

They included Qatar Airways for leading Business Class and Cathay Pacific Airways obtaining Leading Economy Class.

No US airline got an award except for American Airlines for their website: www.aa.com American also was a nominee for world’s best airline. Surely a jest?

Next Tuesday, I will blog about my Etihad experiences.

As I suggested on October 4, American Airlines has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. In its petition filed in New York,  AMR reported assets of $24.72 billion and liabilities of $29.55 billion. The company has $4.1 billion in cash. They have lost about 50 billion dollars in the last decade. The bankruptcy will give the carrier the opportunity to reduces its debt levels.  A chapter 11 filing allows for a reorganisation. The aim is to survive.

What does this filing mean?

Not much will change immediately. Existing ticket holders will find their tickets are honoured. Planes will still take off and land across the USA and international points. There will be, I imagine, cuts to some flights with some cities chopped but I cannot see a massive reduction in the services provided by the third largest US carrier.

Frequent flyer miles should be safe. Points earnings will still continue. It may be harder to redeem points.  The risk is that if American Airlines goes, then the points will be worthless. I think the risk is low but if you wanted to play safe, you could cash your points in on one of AA’s partner airlines eg Alaska or a One World  carrier such as British Airways or Qantas.

The One World alliance is safe. I cannot see AA withdrawing from the alliance especially as Qantas, Iberia and British are harmonizing schedules and services with AA. Qantas moved into Dallas to feed passengers into the AA network. Customers seem to like the opportunities to share lounges and pointes etc

American has major orders in for new planes: 260 Airbus A320s and 200 Boeing 737s. It desperately needs them to reduce the fuel costs for their aging fleet. Getting finance for these may be trickier now.

Some airports will face pressure from American to reduce their landing fees. I would be a little nervous if I was Dallas Fort -Worth which is the major AA hub. 85 per cent of all flights at DFW are operated by American.

The greatest impact will be for employees. Sadly, the hardest hit will be the Employee Pension Plans. The plans are reported to be $10 billion short of what the carrier owes. To survive, American will necd to chop billions from the pension plans. They will need to cut wages and costs for their 88 000 employees which they have been trying to do by negotiation for years. These negotiations have been in almost permanent stall.  The impact of this move wont be good for morale. When I travel across the USA, I already find AA employees some of the most demoralised in the industry.

The surprise for me in the filing was the decision to replace their chief executive and Chairman Gerard Arpey with company president  Tom Horton.  Apey has officially retired. Not sure what the intentions are here.

Finally, American’s other option would be to seek a merger partner. As I suggested on October 14, there are few options for a merger.  Merging with Delta or United-Continental would mean a huge reduction in competition. If, however, AA did not survive at all, then there would also be a major reduction in competition. Another option is US Airways which itself has high costs. Alaska is too small. Southwest and Jet Blue are out of the question although they would be interested in routes and slots. My thought is they need to go international for a merger partner which would be anathema to the US authorities currently. IAG, the owners of British and Iberia would be the logical stable.

In the last ten years, the USA has lost:

• TWA who merged with American in 2001 after 76 years of flying
• National Airlines a three year old Las Vegas based carrier disappeared in 2002
• Pan Am III which operated under the iconic name from 1998-2004
• Aloha who ceased operations in 2008 a week after going into Chapter 11 ending a 62 year history
• Northwest who merged in 2008 with Delta after 82 years of operations
• Independence Air 2006
• Delta Express which operated from 1996 to 2003 then became Song and was folded into Delta in 2006
• America West/USAir who took on US Airways name in 2007 in that merger
• MaxJet 2007 after two years of operation
• ATA (American Trans Air) in 2008 after 31 years of flying
• EOS who ceased passenger operations in 2008 after four years of flying- currently operate charters only
• Skybus who came and went in less than a year 2008
• Ted,  a United low cost  carier was merged back into parent company in 2008 after seven years of operations
• Midwest Airlines who became part of Frontier in 2010
• Continental who are currently merging with United
• AirTran who are currently merging with Southwest

With only one new carrier operating (Virgin America), the result has been a reduction in airline competition  in the USA at the large mainline carrier end and the low cost carrier end. The country now has the big four (United, Delta, American and US) and then  Alaska, Frontier, JetBlue and Southwest with the aforementioned Virgin nibbling around the edges.  I can see further consolidation with one of the big four going. It means more and more airports will have fewer domestic operators for a few years.

Image via Wikipedia

This week saw the first anniversary of a joint business agreement between American, Iberia and British. Under this agreement, the airlines agreed to co-operate commercially on flights between the United States, Mexico, Canada, the European Union, Switzerland and Norway. The agreement  was backed up by anti trust immunity from US and European authorities.

Shortly, after the agreement was signed, in January, 2011, Iberia and BA merged into a new company called IAG (international Airlines Group), Europe’s third largest airline group and the sixth largest in the world by revenue. The airlines have combined the strong BA Asian connections with Iberia’s Latin American connections. The new company has headquarters in Madrid, and operational offices in London. BA investors got 55 per cent of the carrier and Iberia 44 per cent. The two brands have been kept. There have been some claims by Spanish unions of favoritism to the Brits.

That merger and the agreement raises the question for me about American Airlines and IAG. Its so logical for IAG to merge with American.

American has not got many places left to go. United and Delta are not possible merger partners for lots of reasons (monopoly issues, already bedding down mergers, different alliances etc). Merging with USAir would be a bad idea.  Frontier, Alaska, Hawaiian and JetBlue are too small and Southwest would not give American enough international connections. American needs to go outside of the USA to get a merger partner.

American had been surrounded by rumours of its impending bankruptcy for a couple of weeks now.  If it did declare bankruptcy, it could clean up its balance sheet.  Such a bankruptcy would therefore,  make the merger even more interesting for IAG.

The major blockage to merger is that the U.S. government caps foreign ownership  of US carriers at 25 per cent. Moving this cap to 49 per cent, would make such an international merger much more possible and attractive. It would ensure the survival of American.

It could lead to some more interesting international mergers. My friend Tony and I predicted a world with 10 to 12 mega carriers and 25 -30 regionals. Be interesting to see how right we end up!

Wonder if anyone is lobbying the US Government over the 25 per cent rule?

I am interested in what is happening over at American Airlines. Their shares fell 33 per cent yesterday as people expected the worst after a 62 percent drop so far this year. This last fall came amid fears that the airline could be forced into bankruptcy. Unlike most of the major airlines in the USA, American Airlines has avoided bankruptcy. This may change.

Currently, they are one of the airlines I dread flying. Despite being a One World airline, the difference between Cathay, Qantas, Lan and even British Airways is palpable.

They have very high debt levels ($17 billion), a higher cost base than other airlines in the USA, higher employee wages,  older (and tatty) planes (their average plane is almost 15 years old which means some are ancient) and a perception of inferior service – in a slow economy.

AA, of course are making changes:

• In July, 2011, the airline placed the world’s largest plane order: 260 Airbus A320s and 200 Boeing 737s. This will help reduce their massive fuel bills by up to 25 per cent.
• Bankruptcy may help them with staff costings and with refinancing their debt.  Their staff morale can’t get much lower (AA staff are some of the most negative and disempowered I have seen in the air).
• Service  can’t get any worse. Bankruptcy may allow them to start again?

What do you see as the future of AA?

My ratings of American:
3 out of 5  over fourteen years

Positives:  Member One World, earn Qantas Frequent Flyer points, large US network, Dallas Hub

Negatives: see above

Would I fly them again? Reluctantly

Ever noticed how airlines welcome you aboard? As you go down the jetbridge and through the open aeroplane door, what happens. In Australia and New Zealand domestic travel, crew members check your boarding pass and usually greet you. This is generally the case with international flights. Not so  in the USA as passengers wander onto the plane ignored by cabin crew. These have been my experiences with domestic and international cabin crews.

Air Asia-there were flight crew on board?
Air Canada- Calm cheerfulness
Air France- Gallic hospitality-feel like I am coming home
Air New Zealand – Awesome Kiwi friendliness
American- Surly
British- mix of friendliness and British reserve
Cathay Pacific- Refined Charming
Delta-Down to Earth
Emirates-Extremely welcoming
Frontier- Fun and Friendly
JetBlue- some of the friendliest attendants ever
Jetstar- ugh
LAN- Latino politeness and warmth
Lufthansa- Lovely welcomes every time
Malev-Warm
Qantas- Warm and professional
Ryanair- reserved, resentful,
SAS  -uber Scandanavian reserve
Singapore- almost subservient, almost forced greetings
Southwest- Fun, sometimes manic but always Fun with a captal F
United- Usually grumpy
V Australia- warm and groovy
Virgin America – Aloof coolness
Virgin Blue/Australia – Harried friendliness

What do you think? Whats your experience?