Originally Posted by
Kacee
There's really no correlation between FFP value and the sponsoring airline's financial health and ability to compete. I'm also a fan of the AA program relative to UA and DL, but concerned the airline may fade into irrelevance. Current management's indecisive tinkering around the edges is not going to cure its ills, which include an increasingly debilitating debt load.
My take exactly. The only reason I've been loyal to American for so many years is the FFP, and it's literally the only reason I don't switch my loyalty to DL. Still, the best FFP in the world can't make up for terrible debt load, lack of any kind of vision, and an incomprehensible retreat from premium markets (JFK, ORD, LAX). AA's network out of my home city used to be outstanding, now it's terrible.
The hard product is nice, the service is fine, the Bollinger partnership is cool, but they're in a totally different game than DL on the ground product and UL on global network. If they went all-in on their "desire to go premium" and better leveraged their excellent JV's , there'd be hope. Instead they seem content slinging credit cards to the middle class in the sunbelt.
I find myself still trying to accumulate AAdvantage miles, but am going to barely requalify for ExPlat this year and will probably give up loyalty all together next year. Been quite enjoying the AmEx and Chase ecosystems.