What I Want to See American Airlines Do

Checklist to Travel
American Airlines 777

Ever since I can remember, I have been a loyal American Airlines flyer. Although I have flown multiple airlines in my life, I hold a special spot for American in my heart. That being said, I believe American has lagged behind many of its competitors in all playing fields. Given this, I have earned this year United Premier Silver Status, Alaska MVP status, and JetBlue Mosaic. Nonetheless, I still strive to reach Executive Platinum every year. That being said, I have a few things I would love to see American improve on:

AAdvantage:

Unlimited Upgrades for All Elites

Something I believe United and Delta do better than American is offering their non-top tier elites unlimited upgrades. American should allow their lower tier elites access to upgrades regardless of stickers.

Defining How to Achieve Concierge Key Status

American should publish how to achieve Concierge Key Status. They should make it an official premium status. The only published way to obtain said status is via an AirPass.

Executive Platinums Access to Premium Economy

Given the addition of Premium Economy, AA should allow their top tier elites (CKs and EXPs) to space available upgrades about 48 hours before departure. This would make their elite program the most rewarding.

Admirals Club Access to Executive Platinums

Some airlines offer their top tier elite members access to their lounges when they travel. American should imitate this, and allow their EXPs access to Admirals Clubs, and their CKs access to Flagship Lounges.

Systemwide Upgrades Increases

American should increase systemwide upgrades back to 8. Since their onboard product is not that great, the airline can possibly compensate by offering their elites chances to upgrade.

AAdvantage Partnerships

American should re-instate their partnership with Qatar and Etihad, as well as add new partners of strategic interest. Some of those partners should be S7 and Sri Lankan within oneWorld. Outside of oneWorld, I would love American to proceed with their purchase of China Southern, as well as investing in partnerships with Airlines in Mexico, India and Canada.

American Airlines 777
American Airlines 777

Premium Cabins:

Improve their On Board Service

American (and just about every other legacy carrier) needs to improve their onboard service. For the longest time, US carriers have had issues providing consistent service. I blame mainly company culture, union leverage, and customer’s inability to compliment and complain when they have great or poor service. If US carriers, not just American, could get their act together, they could offer service comparable to other carriers in similar situations (think Air France, British Airways, etc).

Improve Catering

American has some of the worst airline catering I’ve had. Occasionally, their international catering is good. Yet, on domestic segments there is hardly any variety and the food is of very lackluster quality. A minimal investment in variety would go a long way, as would a slight improvement of food quality. I don’t expect them to use DO&CO but they could improve their suppliers.

Enhancing the Premium Experience

American’s Premium Experience is lacking. Their Flagship lounges are not very “first class-y” especially at Los Angeles and Chicago. American could learn from Air France’s first class lounge, and add spa services in them. American can also provide transfers for their First Class passengers, there are so few first class seats available now, it would not be very difficult. These improvements would make the First Class experience much more exclusive.

American Airlines 777 First Class
American Airlines 777 First Class

Enhanced Transcon Premium Service

American’s First Class transcon service is just like a really good business class service. There is no other airline offering First Class services, but jetBlue Mint runs circles around them. Seat and food-wise they are so much better. American can improve many of these aspects, and integrate them with the above mentioned improvements.

American Airlines A321T First Class
American Airlines A321T First Class

Uniform International Business Class Seat

Something that really upsets me is how American has about 9 configurations on their international aircraft in business class. The airline doesn’t offer a consistent product, and makes it very difficult for me to decide which aircraft I would fly. The airline should make their 777s, A330s and 787 have sufficiently similar seats.

Improve Domestic Lounges

Going back to the lounge issue, American Airlines should improve their domestic lounges to offer e a bit more food to passengers. Even if it’s finger sandwiches and full salads, it would be an improvement to their current offering. They offer a very comprehensive network of lounges, so it would be a major plus if they improved them.

Admirals Club
Admirals Club

Inflight Experience:

Improve their Wifi

American is currently in the process of installing Gogo 2Ku wifi, as well as adding ViaSat to their 737MAX and their Panasonic equipped international aircraft. You can see the problem here. There are 3 different wifi providers, this means that you cannot get a monthly pass, or annual pass that will work on the entire fleet. If American can work out with its providers a way to have this fixed, this would be ideal.

American Airlines A321
American Airlines A321

Improved Food for Purchase in Economy

American has a very limited menu onboard for purchase. When you compare it to the offerings on United and jetBlue, American falls behind. They should add more options in terms of solid food as well as snack boxes. This is an easy place to improve, and I believe the airline should be on its way doing this.

Retrofit Legacy US Airways Aircraft

The biggest complaint I have about American Airlines is their sub-par (read deplorable) US Airways A320s and A321s. These aircraft are awful, no power ports, bad wifi, no IFE at all. The airline can and should remodel these aircraft and add both Main Cabin Extra and some form on onboard power. This is the complaint many people have regarding American, and this nudges back at the airline’s inconsistent fleet product.

Former US Airways A319
Former US Airways A319

Miscellaneous:

Improved Aviator Silver Card Benefits

American offer two premium credit cards. One via Citi (The World Elite Executive MasterCard) and the other is offered via Barclaycard. Barclaycard’s premium card is called the Aviator Silver, and it offers EQD waivers for certain spends. This only applies to the Aviator Cards (the Red and Silver). The Citi Executive Card offers Admirals Club access, but no EQD waiver. This forces people to have both credit cards if they want to have the full set of benefits .I believe American should synergize the benefits from each card.

Improving Joint Ventures

American should improve their Joint Ventures and match the products offered in each airline. Just as American has been improving their cabin service to align with Qantas and JAL, American should match the offers of BA, Iberia and Finnair. This could improve the quality of economy class service on the airline.

Diversifying Assets

Delta has been leading the charge on diversifying assets. They own parts of China Eastern, Virgin Atlantic, GOL, Aeromexico and possibly Jet Airways soon. American should purchase assets in some airlines, such as their current interest in purchasing a stake in China Southern. They should also look into other airlines. I believe Air India would be a good purchase. Other airlines as mentioned before in Russia and Mexico could be good purchases.

American Airlines 777
American Airlines 777

Landing Thoughts:

I have been a loyal American flyer for almost 23 years. I do not intend on changing my top loyalty any time soon. That being said, there are thing American can do to push me away. I hope American soon takes up some of these improvements, instead of continuing the “race to the bottom”. Only time will tell what will happen.

 

What do you think? How else should American improve? What other changes would you like to see at American? Let us know!

 

All images from the Author or Wikipedia.

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12 comments
  1. A lot to do with the company, it’s programs, and other offerings. I’d suggest the “stop punishing of passengers, specifically elites”. Seats are getting smaller and tighter. An ancient old MD-80 has a bigger seat than a nice shiny new ‘modern’ 787. Leg room is ridiculous, even for long haul flights. The old 777s were from a two-decade-old design but were more comfortable than the latest offerings. Seats had cushions and were wider. Today they are paper thin, hard, and nearly 2 inches narrower than older ones.

    The in flight entertainment is probably the best out there. Sad they are removing it from the offerings.

    Punishing the elites, by forcing revenue restrictions (particularly because ‘special fares – those booked through corporate travel systems count as pennies on the dollar) elimination of rows of MCE, and removal of first class seats. The catering in economy is rather pathetic. There is one single good item in my opinion and it’s available for two months of the year (it’s a turkey sandwich available in November and December). Everything else else is just terrible — when it’s even available. From what I’ve seen they will only a handful of items on each plane and will cater at hubs only. The likelihood of securing anything unless you’re in first couple of rows is very slim.

    AA needs to stop punishing passengers and their most loyal. Stop devaluing their program and bring a better on board product. The lounges are a quiet place to be. That’s it. Food choices tend to be terrible there as well. Honestly I have no clue where AA is getting their company-wide catering services from.

  2. The 2 biggest complaints I have from the list are the 3 different wifi services and those deplorable LUS aircraft-fixing those 2 areas would go a long way in improving the airline. Inconsistent is AA’s middle name!

    1. Hi TXRUS, Thanks for reading!

      I 1000% agree, a small improvement on their LUS fleet would go a very long way. And their wifi NEEDS to improve, I cant even access mobile websites when connected on their normal Gogo servers, it’s extremely frustrating.

      Best,
      The Millennial Traveler

  3. They could give you 8 or 800 SWUs but until they open inventory so they can be used, what’s the point?

    1. Hi Robert, thanks for reading!

      I have found that inventory for some flights is consistent (such as LAX-HKG) and for most others, it opens up close to departure. I have seen a few (1 or 2) available for most flights to Europe in the next three weeks, so I think that is sort of a plus? I want to see more upgrade space on domestic flights though.

      Best,

      The Millennial Traveler

  4. “I do not intend on changing my top loyalty any time soon.” And there’s the rub. I’m in exactly the same boat as you, but abandoning all the work that’s been done to this point is difficult.

    1. Hey Jake, Thanks for reading!

      I agree, I don’t want to dump American because of my progress, but I also need to see them work for my loyalty. If I were to get an offer to United Global Services, then I would switch in a heart beat.

      Best,

      The Millennial Traveler

  5. While I agree with most of this I would not change the 500 mile stickers for lower level elites. I’m Gold and likely to be Platinum this year on AA. The only way a Gold gets upgrades on longer flights is by limiting the 500 mile stickers. Sure there are some odd routes and times of week/day where there wouldn’t be as many elites flying but typically you could guess that there are 4 to 6 first class upgrades (just guessing per flight). So if there are 10 elites flying but 4 don’t want to spend stickers then it leaves those lower level elites some hope.
    I also disagree with just giving open access to the lounges to all top elites. As someone who has access via Citi AA Exec card it would give them little reason to get that card. Also they are crowded enough. Maybe I could meet halfway in the middle with say so many passed per year for various elite levels. Like say 1 pass for Gold, 2 for Plat, etc. Also make those passes tied to the flyer number so they can’t be sold on ebay.
    I would vote for better AA lounges and also a bigger footprint. Maybe they could come up with a small lounge or mini version for smaller airports where they have a lot of flights like say SLC. Oh and they do offer other food on a paid menu. This paid menus is my biggest complaint. I fly on business and tend to have layovers around Lunch or maybe dinner at times. So say my layover is an hour. I have a choice. I can stay in the lounge and order some semi-crappy sandwich that the bartender seems to make on a george foreman grill over in the corner or skip most of the lounge time and go eat at a regular airport restaurant but get a better meal. Cost is no object since it’s on my expense account but I need better food to buy. Well that and stop serving weird soups. It’s not a sin to just have vegetable beef or chicken noodle once in awhile instead of Tuscan tomato portabello frog leg or whatever. #firstworldproblems 🙂

    1. Hi Dan, Thanks for reading!

      This is a really long comment, so I will respond part by part!

      -I agree that if you are Gold, the sticker system is convenient, my issue is with how expensive they are. I have found that for some routes, its cheaper to fly in business class, than maybe get an upgrade and have to pay for stickers that outweigh the cost of the upgrade, not to mention I get more EQDs and EQMs.
      -When I mentioned giving it to elites, I only meant to EXPs, given they are American’s most loyal customers, and it would be a major boost to loyalty if they offered it. Delta has a similar benefit as their “Choice Benefit” for Diamond Members.
      -The third point hits close to home (literally) although I now live in Houston, which got an Admirals Club recently, the one in San Juan PR was closed. They have over 15 flights per day, maybe more, and they don’t offer an AC here. They should have more lounges, or at least contract out to some other lounges at places where they operate more.
      Thanks for your thoughts! I really appreciate all your comments! Hope you enjoy your Platinum Status this coming year!

      Best,

      The Millennial Traveler

    1. Hi Gisele! Thanks for reading!

      OMG I forgot that, American needs to open up domestic award availability ASAP. Theres a bit trans Atlantic availability right now, but thats all there is.

      Best,

      The Millennial Traveler

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