Despite what American’s pre-2022 safety video says, going for great is not what they’re going for since they were acquired by US Airways. Doug Parker’s team’s strategy is to cut its way to profitability, which they’re still doing as American continues its America Westification.
If you didn’t know, US Airways basically acquired American Airlines during their 2013 merger. Of course, US Airways itself was acquired by America West, though the US Airways was retained because it was the more recognizable one. Notice a trend here? Anyway, Doug Parker’s strategy has always been to be as no-frills as possible, even when he took over a premium-leaning American Airlines.
In the years since the merger, American’s standards have, predictably, been declining. Ironically, so, too, has its financial performance. In fact, despite being the largest of U.S.-based airline, it is also the least profitable amongst its peers. Yet, Parker’s successors can’t seem to shake their old habits as American continues its America Westification as they attempt to turn themselves around.
But with consumers preference going increasingly in the premium direction, I don’t understand this continuous race to the bottom. Especially since continuous cheapening of service will align American with low-cost and ultra low-cost carriers, which they cannot effectively compete with thanks to their inherently lower cost operating structure and wildly different revenue structure. Alas, here we are.
American Continues Its America Westification
As noted by several other bloggers, including Gary Leff, American continues its America Westification as it quietly made further cuts to its in-flight service with the elimination of its second beverage service on long domestic flights. In American’s rules, this means that flights over 1,500 miles no longer receive the industry standard pre-landing beverage service.
In lieu of a standardized service, the new standard is for this second service to be on-request, only. This entails passengers either pressing the flight attendant call button or getting up and visiting flight attendants in the galley. This means that, realistically, after the first pass, you aren’t getting additional beverages, as doing either of these when flying with a U.S.-based airline is usually frowned upon.
This being America West, it isn’t just beverage rules that are changing. First Class standards specific to flights operated by the Airbus A321 are also being updated to allow flight attendants to serve meals directly out of the service carts, and requires orders to be taken from front to back. This isn’t so bad, and the standardization is nice. But, serving from a cart in long haul first class is, well, a step below standards at American’s competitors.
Interestingly, Gary Leff notes that flight attendants aren’t happy about the elimination of the second beverage service. I would’ve thought the opposite would be true, but they seem to see this as an embarrassing cost-cutting move, which further diminishes their brand. And, you know what? They’re absolutely correct.
Final Thoughts
You know, with the financial trajectory the company has been taking, along with the strong backlash and backpedaling some of their recent decisions have caused, you think that executives learn that their strategy isn’t the right one. Alas, they haven’t. It seems that Parker’s strategies and delusions are here to stay – for now – as American continues its America Westification.
How long they’ll be able to keep doing this, who knows? But, with the loss of many business accounts, their continuously contracting international route network, and their declining revenues, you’d think the Board would be questioning what’s going on, right? I know I certainly would be.
At any rate, I’ve long predicted this would occur. So, to all the nay sayers out there – I told you so.
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