Last updated on May 10th, 2017 at 10:23 am
American Airlines used to be my airline of choice. That began to change when they merged with US Airways. Over the past few months, however, the downwards spiral of American seems to be accelerating, putting American at an ever increasing disAAdvantage.
As I’ve said before, the American Airlines of today disappoints me. They’re doing everything wrong and are no longer and airline I want to fly. Not that anything is particularly wrong with the service I had on my past couple of flights with them. But at the corporate level, the decisions being made really make me scratch my head.
Putting American Airlines Back On Top
During the bankruptcy process, then CEO Tom Horton had a different goal for American than the current leadership. Back then, American sought to drastically improve the airline. The goal was to create a premium airline which customers actually want to fly. And for a while, it seemed to be working.
With American’s investment in its new fleet, massive improvements were made in both the hard and soft product. I mean look at that great looking meal! I’ve had worse steaks on the ground for sure. And while some of these improvements continue to happen, I believe this is largely a legacy of Tom Horton and crew. After all, many bloggers have documented the massive decline in American’s catering post-merger.
The Beginning of the End
I knew the writing was on the wall once the merger with US Airways was announced. While many others seemed optimistic, the fact that Doug Parker and Scott Kirby would be in charge said all I needed to know. Those two were so focused on squeezing as much costs as possible, they really ran US Airways as a cut rate airline. No IFE, no power outlets, laughable catering, etc. And I knew they’d do the same to American.
So in my mind, the American and US Airways tie-up was, well, a terrible idea. The companies both had completely different cultures and both offered completely different products. Yes, US Airways was the first to use the fantastic reverse-herringbone business class seats American uses on its 77Ws today, but so what?
The Downwards Spiral
Negative changes seemed benign enough at first. The merger went off really smoothly too, but as time progressed, things began to get worse and worse. AAdvantage was devalued and sAAver award space was made virtually impossible to find. This, of course, destroyed American’s greatest competitive advantage and has been well covered by Gary Leff, Lucky, and others. I personally have all but given up on trying to redeem American Miles on an aspirational trip. Now I’m struggling just trying to find a way to burn my remaining miles with them.
That alone didn’t stop me from flying American completely, though. I could still earn Alaska Miles on American flights after all. But then, American seemed to snap and went completely off the rails. To no one’s surprise, they announced a Basic Economy fare which is more restrictive than Delta’s. And guess what? While some fares are now cheaper, many of their Basic Economy fares are simply the previous lowest published fare, while standard economy become more expensive. American also decided to make all window and aisle seats on its DFW-Hawaii flights “premium seats,” fetching about $45 more than the middle seats. That made me avoid that route altogether on my recent trip to San Antonio.
Total Insanity
And now, American is taking things another step towards insanity and announced that they’d be massively decreasing space in their economy cabin. Beginning with the Boeing 737 MAX, American will be reducing 3 rows of economy class legroom by up to 2 inches. And with a current pitch of 31 inches, that means American will be reducing legroom to 29 inches. The remaining rows of economy class will see pitch decrees by 1 inch per row to 30 inches. That’s the tightest configuration of ANY legacy in the US.
But it doesn’t stop there. No, American says they’re going to optimize their seat designs “maximize” personal space. Yeah right. That means the already hard slimline seats are going to get even worse. Luckily, for the time being these changes are limited only to the 737 MAX and 737 Next-Gen fleets. Unfortunately these aircraft are the workhorse of American’s domestic fleet, though flights to Hawaii the continue to operate only A321s.
And American might not be alone in this space for long, Gary reports that United may be considering a similar move too. Which, of course, isn’t surprising since they now have the US Airways cancer as well. So if you think United is bad now, wait till Scott Kirby works his “magic” on them.
The American disAAdvantage Final Thoughts
Like I said, I knew from the very beginning that the new, post-merger American would be terrible. But how terrible they’d actually get has even surprised me. It shouldn’t, but it does, and I suspect this isn’t the end either. And while I had already committed to moving my business over to Alaska, I’ll make even more of an effort now to avoid American as much as I can.
The airline has already been losing quite a few longtime elites. And as reported by Gary, American already missed AAdvantage related revenue estimates this year too. Despite this, American’s executive team continues its march to the bottom. What further confounds me is the fact that these changes are in stark contrast to the company’s current slogan “Going for Great.” Sure, many companies don’t actually follow their tagline, but still. The changes are already beginning to affect the Airline’s bottom line and they know it. So what’s the end game here? What is Doug Parker and team trying to accomplish?
More than ever now, I’d like to see Delta show up American. Especially since Delta has made a commitment to move more upmarket once again.
I think they will see the writing on the wall in the second half of 2017. Many folks like me are going to keep flying just long enough to secure some sort of status with them for 2018 and then start flying other airlines more. For me I was on track to hit at least Platinum this year but I’m stopping at Gold and will branch out to other airlines. Not being hub captive by AA I have to work to fly them when at times there are better options. Why even secure Gold? Because I have to keep Gold to be able to use 500 mile stickers and select better seats within 24 hours. I’m not in love with Delta but thanks to some long hauls on Air France I will likely clear status with them shortly as well. This doesn’t even include low level status with United via Marriott status.
I hope so, DaninMCI. Already we’ve seen many EXPs jumping ship in the forums, and Southwest and Virgin both seem to be more popular options out of Dallas Love too. I’ve heard great things about Delta, though SkyMiles are garbage too. Me, I’m probably going to relegate most of my flying to Alaska + Virgin and Hawaiian + JetBlue as much as possible. Thankfully I’m not hub captive either!
As an employee from the AA side I couldn’t agree with you more. The once great company is quickly falling down to the bottom.
the race to bottom philosophy was well received by AA’s (& other airlines) boards. do away with customer relations, look at profits and stock price. that’s where they set their sights at. i am not happy now no saver award to gateway city for my CX F trips to asia. in turn I will do my best to avoid AA buying flights for the connection.
AA use to cap purchased miles at 60K, now you get twice that for bonus alone. that one factor shows how they have changed course. 55K used to get one way AUS -LAX- HKG, now AUS to LAX alone is 55, AUS-LAX-HKG is 125K.
Very true, ktc. And what a misguided philosophy. As a shareholder, I’d be furious. That is, unless American management convinced the board and shareholders that they don’t need loyal customers… Perhaps they think they have enough of a captive audience at all of their hubs to be profitable? But that’s HIGHLY doubtful. We’ve already seen them miss some revenue marks this year thanks to the AAdvantage devaluation. Didn’t know that about the mileage purchase, haven’t bothered looking in a while. That certainly does say a lot too. Thanks for the info and good luck with your upcoming travel plans!
Well documented. I love that term “US Air Cancer” which is so true.
My biggest mistake this year was that I transferred all my flights to AA in order to get EXP status. But now I’m so disappointed with AA, I can’t bother to continue using my status for this year and next.
But I agree with you 100% about the disaster that AA’s management is. It’s too bad that Wall Street is rewarding them for their actions.
Thanks, VX_Flier. US Air Cancer is truly how I feel about the management team from that airline. US Airways was already facing long-term financial trouble, though still quite profitable in the short-term prior to the merger. So many analysts so this, yet it was still thought that putting these people in charge of pmAA was a good idea?
I feel for you. That’s a tough situation you’re in, but at least your EXP status will get your perks with AS (and hopefully with VX soon) for the time being. I’m just crossing my fingers AS’s CEO stays true to his word and keeps AS/VX the unique snowflake they are. MileagePlan is such a great competitive tool for them now and I really do like flying with them regardless. My only issue now is now to burn my remaining AA miles. We’ll see!
Remember when all this was respectful, enviably? Now it’s just a dinosaur thought!
I’m no EXP; I’ll be earning Gold again with AA from a Qatar Air Travel Festival flight. I may make Platinum given travel I’ve already booked, but the only reason I’d care is to status match to Alaska next year. I see little reason to stay with AA, since the rewards are better at Alaskan, and the product is comparable, at worst. I’d rather earn real miles faster and redeem them cheaper on AS’ international partners.
I’d say that’s the only reason to get disAAdvantage status now is to status match, SightseeMC! And I agree, Alaska has a far superior program.
I agree with all that you have written. As an employee it is disheartening and frustrating to live through much less to read about. We, on the front line, were aware of USAir’s shortcomings and tried wholeheartedly to keep AA top notch for our passengers but were unable to combat the tsunami of downward-trending changes wrought by the new management. Keep hammering at AA, though. You, and others that weigh in, are the only hope of improving the product. So, thank you for all you do! They certainly are not listening to us!
With that said, your writing would be far more respected if you could master the use of the word “worst” versus “worse”. There is a rather glaring difference in their usage. Additionally, “know one’s” versus “no one’s”. Maybe these were simply an auto correct issue?
What is an “aspirational trip”? I’m sure I’m just out of the loop on this one, and really want to know. Is it an AAdvantage phrase?
My apologies for the grammar issue
Thank you for catching my errors, Claire. Those are largely a function of, yes, autocorrect fails, but also me not proofing my posts thoroughly. I do need to get better at that!
I feel for you and the rest of the pre-merger AA team. Like I’ve said in the post, I feel that AA was on the path to greatness under former CEO Tom Horton. Service, hard product, catering, etc. Everything was improving at a rapid pace but never allowed to fully develop. I believe that if AA had remained independent, it would be the airline everyone talks highly of, not Delta. But, again, the fateful decision was to merge two completely different entities with different philosophies and management styles, much like United and Continental. And of course we all know how that played out. Which is a shame, because for as much praise as Hawaiian Air gets, I can genuinely say my flights with pre-merger American crews are better than most (not all) of my flights on Hawaiian. So I sincerely hope that AA management wakes up and listens to its employees and customers, though it looks as if a reversal of the downwards spiral will take a regime change. Hang in there and keep fighting the good fight!
Claire, I almost forgot to answer your question! An aspirational trip is one in which I would not be able to afford paying cash for, though there are different levels to this. For me, truly aspirational trips would be to redeem AAdvantage miles for:
– EY A380 First Class from AUH to SYD
– CX First Class from SFO to HKG
– JL First Class from JFK to NRT
– QF A380 First Class from LAX/DFW to SYD
– AA Business/First from HNL to LHR
Or even just AA First Class HNL-JFK. I did one aspirational redemption with was AA Business/First HNL-LAX-DFW-CDG + FCO-LHR-LAX-HNL and was saving for one of the above… And then the merger and subsequent devaluations happened. Now its a question of how to best burn my (and my wife’s) remaining miles.