We all know that America’s airlines are in the midst of a period of transition. Losing Delta, United and Southwest to other companies has been painful for consumers as well as industry professionals who need these carriers’ presence on domestic routes. Despite this, there is new news from American Airlines about how they plan to stay competitive going forward.
The “american meetings” is a meeting that took place recently at American Airlines. The 3 tidbits from the meeting are as follows: 1) American Airlines will be cutting its flights to five days a week, 2) American Airlines is considering adding an extra flight on Friday to accommodate international travelers, and 3) American Airlines is considering changing their business model to focus more on leisure travel.
3 Takeaways from an American Airlines internal meeting
on December 16, 2021 by Gary Leff
Here are three items from last week’s staff meeting with American Airlines President and CEO-designate Robert Isom, as well as a few other executives that appeared remarkable or otherwise intriguing to me.
- American claims that in the past, they did not properly check suppliers. According to Chief Operating Officer David Seymour, they are now paying more attention to their workforce (airport caterers require people who are qualified to drive trucks up the ramp to deliver beverages to the planes…)
We discovered that our suppliers, especially those that play a crucial role, were even more significant than some of their short-staffed challenges in attracting and keeping personnel, whether it’s caterers, wheelchairs, fuelers, or anything else. We’re keeping a much closer eye on all of them than we have in the past.
- They believe they overstaffed the gates for Thanksgiving. Remember that during the pandemic, American decreased gate personnel and moved to’single agent boarding,’ initially having just one agent serve a flight when loads were below 70% on single aisle aircraft and subsequently increasing that to 80%. Agents are too busy to assist customers, deal with standbys and upgrades, much alone check whether people are too inebriated to travel. And now American wants to charge travelers to gate check luggage that won’t fit in the sizer. Despite this, Seymour claims,
These are [gate agents] who have completed their training and are now adjusting to their new surroundings. As a result, we have a lot of people working there. They nearly suggested we had too much employees at some of the gates, which I assume is a high-class concern.
But, once again, we’re pleased with our staffing numbers across the board, whether it’s at the airports, at our gates, on the ramp, or with our techops group. They’re in a lot better position and doing a much better job of managing out of service at the start of the morning shift.
As Jim Moses said to me, you’ve had numerous days now where we’re reaching the “correct start” target, which they haven’t been able to do in the past but are now.
- American Airlines has nearly finished renovating its Airbus A321s with a new cabin that includes no seatback entertainment, reduced space between seats, and larger overhead bins. “We’re sitting on the A321s right now,” says Chief Operating Officer David Seymour, “with around 25 remaining to finish.” There are just three more heritage US A321s with no seat power, which are even older than the legacy American 321s we had… They’ll be finished, with the final one inducting at the start of next year… We’ll be done with all of them in the first quarter.”
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