Cathay Pacific Asia Miles - Lucky you're not on AA today

I've just been brought down to earth, flying in the States for the first time in a while. American is, how should I say, not a super friendly place to fly. When checking in at the first class line a few days ago at JFK, the woman was talking on the phone (sounded like a friend) for five minutes while all of us stewed in line. No apologies, no nothing. Admirals Club has some special treats, which consist of warm coffee, warm water, and pretzels. No internet access. Of course, the ubiquitous TV. Checking in at Logan, I got a real comedian, who insisted on telling me that my connection on CX was not in the computer, and seeming to enjoy my confusion. Even one of his workmates asked him to cut it out, but he didn't. No mention of a lounge, and of course not very polite.

It doesn't cost an airline much for the staff to be polite, but this seems beyond American, at least in my limited experience. I hope it's an abberation....

Nope

If you were the boss at AA, what would you do to make AA's culture customer friendly?

UA tried the employee ownership plan, and you can see what good that has done... (none to negative)

CX and SQ have rigorous and much invested in cultures built up over a long time. Some aspects of them are probably not legal in the U.S. (age, appearance requirements, for example)

If you can answer this question with success, I'll fly your airline.

Well, you could start by visiting Southwest airlines. Although they have their off moments the recipe generally works. Near as I can tell it's simply that the man at the top does things that make sense and has developed something of a rapport all the way down the line.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by JohnAx:
Well, you could start by visiting Southwest airlines. Although they have their off moments the recipe generally works. Near as I can tell it's simply that the man at the top does things that make sense and has developed something of a rapport all the way down the line. </font>

I'd suggest you look at Walmart and see how their formerly legendary culture is breaking down under the pressure of continued growth.

The Sourthwest culture is like the Walmart culture used to be.

Your description is more indicative of NY than just AA. Generally I try to stay away from LGA and JFK as most employees there are not indicative of the rest of the AA system.

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AA member since 1981

Take it from me, I have had years of flying predominantly on US carriers and you do get use to it then you fly on CX and think what in the world was I doing travelling with UA, Northwest, AA and the rest. QF isn't as bad but I can say that they are only just better. BA is about the same with QF only it seems that both airlines have an old and ugly competition for staff on long haul flights.

Seniority has its negatives, and so do some equality rules and laws.

Well,there probably is some truth to the NY thing. I grew up there,and it took me years to get over the idea that people who were being nice to me weren't playing some angle....Unfortunately, my experience with AA in Boston was no better.

It seems that both staff and clients are really really stressed out. I was in an American Eagle departure area, and they were calling flights literally every 10 minutes,and trying to search selected people, and trying to keep people from taking too much carry-on. In comparison, the pace at Hong Kong seems absolutely leisurely (or there are more staff for the number of passengers,I don't know).

Star and Strips,

I could not agree with you more.. TO be sure, 70% of my EXP status points is earned via CX.

On a newly inagurated JFK-NRT run, it has instantly become the "seniority choice" route among JFK based crews since they will get seven days off after their three day stint to NRT. I hope they will be able to provide the service that is invigorating as well as sustaining for the sake of the continuation of the service!

U.S. airlines suffer from attitude problems stemming from
(a) egalitarian culture,
(b) powerful unions that prevent firing of incompetent staff, and
(c) poor management.

(a) and (b) have their benefits at times, but a by-product is under-performing customer service levels. That is why they need generous frequent flier programs to compensate, otherwise no one would fly them.