Originally Posted by
bdhaliwa
Good for you, ultimately in America that is the only way companies respond when they see impact in top and bottom line. Airline business is very heavily dependent on top fliers, AA seems going out of its way to screw with them. Being a SF based flyer, I have toyed with going 100% with DL but have not pulled the plug, next year might be it. This year I flew DL several times to and from ANC and say the day/night difference in their over all service vs both AA and AS. Currently on AA 192 back, you can't help but notice the bad service, I avoided the crappy food by having a dinner at CX F lounge (which even after cost cutting is still better than any AA food), but the cabin is a mess, only snacks in the so called bar were left over desserts which looked gross and some stuff that came straight from a vending machine, but hey it was sitting on clean table cloth, washroom amenities were missing or empty, garbage bags sitting open in galley, sinks in C/F washrooms absolutely gross! When you combine a very good hard product with very bad soft product, you get bad overall product.
I switched to AS, although my Miami/New York flying I'm using primarily jetBlue. I was throwing in some AA trips here and there, but don't have any left. The difference is night and day. What a superior airline in every respect Alaska Airlines is to the new American. And the elite benefits are just fantastic, especially with regards to flight changes.
I realize AS does not work for everybody - but for my travel needs and habits from LAX, it works, especially since merging with Virgin America. They fly me non-stop to where I need to go most often domestically; and since when I fly to Europe/Asia I pay for J regardless, I won't miss the OW premium benefits. The only thing I really miss is having to use FLL instead of MIA, but a small price to pay for a superior in-flight product.