Churnman

I'm hearing from others in the airline industry that Seaborne Airlines, which recently was supposed to be taking the place of American Eagle in USVI and BVI, started removing all award class availability. Has anyone else heard this. Even AA reps are wondering what's going on. I really thought they were going to be a great partner for AA to replace the Eagle flights, but if they don't care about partner frequent flier business this will change many people's plans to even visit certain islands like St. Croix, Tortola and others. I hope this is not true and that any transition they are experiencing in beginning to partner with a big airline that they will realize you can't ignore the frequent fliers of your partner. I, like many others, plan my vacations and resort stays on where my miles take me.

Churnman

Anyone else finding out that Seaborne Airlines, which is working with AA now in place of the American Eagle flights in USVI and BVI, wiped out their avail award seats for AA and partners? I've got BA and AA looking into this, but so far no answers. We were booked on an Eagle flight from Tortola, then when AA cancelled the Eagle flights and went with Seaborne we were booked by AA on an earlier flight with Seaborne. That was already a hinderance since it shortened our plans that day, but then this week we were bumped from that flight to an even earlier one even though AA was able to confirm there were award seats available on the afternoon flight. Then BA looked and saw the same thing and wondered why they bumped us. We have our e-tickets, but now we're hearing someone removed all award seats from any flights they can see on Seaborne. Hopefully, this is a transition glich and not Seaborne not wanting to give AA/One World partner award seats at all. That would be a blow to tourism in St. Croix, BVI and some others.

Any others out there know what's going on with the Seaborne Airlines/AA partnering? Is this a watered down arrangement?

Psyclone*Jack

We were in a similar situation. Had a return award ticket in J from EIS - SJU - DFW in late April. AA cancelled the EIS - SJU flight and had no replacement for a few days. I had to call them a few times to open up Award Availability on the EIS - SJU Seaborne flight, they finally did it but it took some time and repetitive calls.

I fly on Seaborne next Friday from SJU, hope it goes well.

Churnman

If you feel like it, please inquire with them when you fly if they are trying to avoid allowing AA and One World partners from booking award seats with them. Are they wanting all the financial benefits of having a big airline booking flights for them as part of code sharing yet being stingy in giving up a couple seats per flight for partner awards? They are going to do quite well with AA, but they need to be fully committed to the whole program. Some of us flying to the Caribbean will forget AA all together. Award seats make money too and bring in new customers who will then pay for other flights in future if they like the service.

usviflyer

Surprised this hasn't been posted yet:

http://aviationblog.dallasnews.com/2...greement.html/

Unfortunately STT and STX are kept out of it, just like with the Cape Air partnership

bchandler02

Don't both of these airlines have an incredibly horrid seat width/pitch when compared to domestic average Y? I seem to recall reading this a while back on FT, and it's a major concern for us tall people. It effectively rules out these destinations for us, unless we can find another airline flying mainline or RJ type service.

aisleorwindow

Probably, but these are short hop flights on Saab340s. Were you expecting lie-flat beds?

Wingtipflyer1

They'll have a spa with free pre-take off massage & post-flight spa to make up for that 30 min Saab flight.

JDiver

It's been under discussion hereabouts (advanced search, search titles only, return as threads, keyword seaborne) for a while.

The article refers to the announcement of the codeshare update: "The agreement allows American to offer connecting flights from San Juan’s Luis Muńoz Marín International Airport on Seaborne to: Dominica; Fort-de-France, Martinique; Pointe-a-Pitre, Guadeloupe; Tortola, British Virgin Islands; Vieques, Puerto Rico; and Virgin Gorda, British Virgin Islands." and the ability to earn, and burn "later this year", AAdvantage miles.

The video shows a Fairchild SAAB 340, and the seats seem to be leather covered in a 1 x 2 configuration - perhaps not so uncomfortable for a short duration flight, or at least better than the old Eagle Fairchild Swearingen Metroliner, AKA "San Antonio Sewerpipe", fully equipped to seat fourth grades throughout the cabin.

FWAAA

It's a 34 seat SAAB; seat pitch/legroom will be identical to the pitch/legroom on AA's old SAABs (formerly found at DFW, LAX and various NE hubs). Just book the exit row (front row) and you'll survive.

bhq100

"San Antonio Sewerpipe" that's hillarious.........hadn't heard that one before.

glocklt4

Does anyone know if awards with Seaborne work normally then? I am not able to find any available at all on the AA site when trying to book SJU-FDF.

"There are currently no awards available on AA.com for your requested Origin and Destination. Please modify your request or contact AAdvantage Reservations for award opportunities on all AAdvantage participating airlines."

radioinstl

after 30 min on phone with EXP desk, there are no award seats from now till the end of the current AA booking calendar for flights to or form SJU to EIS.

what a joke

Churnman

Update:

Forgive me for taking so long to update my experience with Seaborne from this past July. We originally booked our award seats using BA points on AA. At that time AA was still using AA Eagle from San Juan to Beef Island (Tortola). Then, they made the deal with Seaborne and we were placed on that with similar departure time. All was fine until Seaborne booted us off the more desirable afternoon departure and put us on in the morning. This messed up our plans. AA, BA nor Seaborne would change it back to our preferred departure even though there was plenty of room many months in advance (they claimed the seats on the afternoon flight were a higher cat and not for our award, but their is only coach on that plane, it was just a better departure time). So we made adjustments with the resort and other plans.

When we departed by boat from the resort to Beef Island to check-in early for the flight back to San Juan, Seaborne couldn't find our names on any of their flights nor our booking reference!! We were very fortunate that my always prepared wife had her ipad and opened it up to prove to them that we were ticketed on that Seaborne flight (image on screen). But, they had already sold out the seats. So, we were stuck in limbo. The Seaborne agent finally booked us on the later flight. We called the resort to see if they could send the taxi van back to the airport to pick us up and return us to the dock. They said sure, but we lost our room (was being prepped for someone else). The taxi never showed so we ran with our luggage from the airport to the dock and just made it as the boat was leaving (yelled and they came back).

Seaborne and AA really messed things up on this one. In compensation, of which I had to ask for later, AA gave us two $100 vouchers for future travel. I would have preferred points since I never buy tickets, but at least they tried to compensate a little for the troubles.

I really hope Seaborne and AA can get their systems synced up properly.

alpen1

This has been the issue from day 1 and 99% of the issues have been on Seaborne's side from discussions with employees both here and in SJU. They are more than a month delayed in being able to issue boarding passes on one another's flights and AA is waiting anxiously.