Gary Leff has a most interesting article, which details the weather change with the Parker administration from advocating and planning Low Cost Carrier operations to choosing improvements and further building a premium airline, though there seem to be some potholes in that path.
How US Airways Management Learned the Importance of a Premium American Airlines Product by Gary Leff on April 16, 2018
link
The (at least most notable)
good with some of my drop-in items)
Retention of three class transcon A321T service - wishing they had more than ten Flagship,First seats
Expansion of the longhaul Business product - selecting a true premium Super Diamond Solo business suite, rather than a BA-like trailing product (though much of this was serendipitous after the debacle of LAA staffers selecting a cheaper, skeletonized and failed Zodiac “Concept D” business suite)
Expanding, refreshing and adding Admirals Clubs, Flagship Lounges and Flagship First Dining
Adding Premium Economy to widebody aircraft (albeit trailing edge seats)
The mistakes
Paring back food and food quality (now recovering)
The bad
The “Oasis Project” (any desert and camel analogies here?} 737 MAX 8 / 7M8 and refitting of 737s and A320 family with the new microlavs and “More Sardines Throughout Coach” 30” Rockwell Collins Interior Design Meridian seating
D0 and the diminution of the ability to use those refurbished lounges lest one lose Bin space, upgrades, etc.
Recasting AA lowest fares as stripped down “Basic Economy” fares
Doug Parker (DP’s conversion?)
“No one is trying to take this company, the American Airlines brand, and turn it into US Airways. And I know that somehow that perception has come across, but it’s absolutely not true.
I told you the major objective..was to have a world class product. Trust me, US Airways never would have had Flagship lounges like we have now at American. They never would have had the kind of aircraft we have now at American. They wouldn’t have the sales force that we put in place at American. Our objective is to have a world class product, and it’s nothing like what US Airways had and it’s better than what American had. That’s where we want to go and that’s where we’re moving. I want to make sure there’s no mistake about that. Nothing about this merger was meant to be ‘oh let’s go take the American product and move to the US Airways product.’
To the contrary – and again there may have been some of that at the start, I’ll be honest about that. When we came in, I know, some of us came from US Airways thought ‘Oh gosh there’s some stuff American does you don’t really need to do and you still get the same amount of revenue.’ We found all that to be not the case because it’s such a different airline.
So indeed things like we came in early and took a bunch of meals out of airplanes, we’ve now gone and added back a lot more than either airline had before. Things like sales force, we came in and reduced a lot of the sales team, thinking US Airways didn’t have nearly as many as American we don’t need as many. We’ve now gone and added back a lot more than we ever had before. So to the extent that was true before, and I think it was overstated versus reality, it’s certainly not true now.
Our objective is to go have a world class product… I know it’s better than it was a few years ago, and it’s gonna get better over time.”