When I am in California, the Los Angeles Times is a critical component of my breakfast each morning. This morning, I was pleasantly surprised to find a fascinating article on American Airlines' fight against alleged abusers of their AAirpass program. The story is well worth reading.
In 1981, American Airlines introduced a pre-paid AAirpass option, including an option for unlimited lifetime travel for $125,000 (about $300,000 in 2012 dollars). That price went up to ...
I had a wonderful time at the Freddie Awards in New York City last night, mingling with a number of bloggers, journalists, industry folk, and even some of my readers! A big thanks to Gary Leff for the invite and Randy Petersen for his involvement in this project after a three year hiatus. MC Robert Wuhl was a riot and I really did have a great evening.
Here are the winners (and there were a lot of them!):
AIRLINES
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Since March 3rd, it's been pretty obvious that the intergration between United & Continental didn't go as smoothly as we were led to believe. The switch over to Continental's antiquated Passenger Service System, SHARES, forced thousands of customers to contact reservations to deal with issues ranging from loss of seats, the inbability to upgrade, as well as some ticketed and confirmed reservations disappearing.
Wait times to reach a reservations agent quickly grew into several ...
As American Airlines management continues to insist its goal is to emerge from bankruptcy as a stronger, leaner stand-alone airline, US Airways is upping the rhetoric on a potential merger:
Speaking on a conference call with reporters and analysts about US Airways' first-quarter earnings, Scott Kirby said a merger of his carrier and American parent AMR Corp (AAMRQ.PK) would generate more savings and revenue improvements than AMR's plan could produce on its own.
"There is a ...
Back in January, I was fortunate to have flown on the first (and hopefully annual!) oneworld MegaDO, hosted by MilePoint, American Airlines, & Hyatt. Although tickets for the MegaDO sold out in less than twenty minutes, my attendance at the launch party in Los Angeles had given me the opportunity to book the day before the general sales window opened up. I knew from the moment I saw the details of the program, as well as the offers from AA (fly 20K EQMs for Exec. Plat status!), that I ...
Six months ago, in the Q3 earnings call for American Airlines, CEO Tom Horton responded to a question by TheStreet.com's Tom Reed about the possibility of "further consolidation" in the industry:
"Does that include you?" asked Reed.
"Yeah, it could," Horton replied.
Horton has more recently also said "For years I've said that I think consolidation has been — can be healthy and constructive for the U.S. airline industry." Yet he couched this comment within ...
