airb330

I hate to downplay the changes but the only good thing is at least the cuts aren't as bad as what happened at United. They had a good first class service to Hawaii as did Continental. Now? On ewr-HNL you'll receive a mid-con type meal, sundae, and a pre-arrival wrap (awful) or cheeseburger.

Menus might stick around at least, reports seem varied.

flyingmusicianlax

Please convey your disappointment to AA's Twitter and Facebook teams. They are monitoring both for reaction to the new meals.

Also, please do send a message to AA Customer Relations - per the F/A's suggestion - as that is the official channel for complaints.

McFlyPHL

So let me get this straight. You're going to fly less to Hawaii because you don't like all the food on one tray at one time, the butter isn't in a ramekin, and you want more pepper? If that's what makes or breaks your trip to Hawaii, you might want to re-evaluate your reasons for going in the first place.

That said, the narrative of "embarrassed" FA's and "everyone" complaining has been proven false to this management team once before. They didn't fall for it before and it's doubtful they will this time. Reading this board is a whole lot like reading the US board as the HP merger progressed. Turns out the sky wasn't falling. Change isn't easy - I left the HP merger for AA because I was a lot like folks on this board. After 1.5mm I had to go somewhere only US flew on a regular basis and went back. Surprisingly, the differences were not many. Some things I liked, some things I didn't.

Perhaps I'm alone, but I'm not changing my airline of choice to Hawaii over whether my meal comes on a single tray with butter in a ramekin.

MAH4546

The AA/US merger is unprecedented among major airline mergers in this country: a bare-bones, low cost airline (US Airways) merged with a full-service airline (American Airlines).

Nobody has proven anything.

Merging HP and US was easy - both were low-cost, low-frills, no-customer service airlines.

ubernostrum

Funny, that. I've flown lie-flat TATL J on that "bare-bones, low cost airline". I've flown relatively roomy (by United States domestic standards) A320-family planes on my domestic itineraries, and nice new E-Jets when the route can't support the Airbus.

Unlimited status-based complimentary domestic upgrades into F, with alcoholic beverages. Meal service on longer flights. In-flight wifi. All on that "bare-bones, low cost airline".

Lounges with food and alcoholic beverages. Priority customer service line for elites. Benefits that carry over to alliance partners. All on that "bare-bones, low cost airline".

Proactive rebookings in case of IRROPS, including rebooking an international trip over to another airline for me when a delay was going to break the original itinerary. That "bare-bones, low cost airline" strikes again!

etc., etc.

Meanwhile, my experiences with that "full-service airline" have consistently made me wonder if they know what the word "service" means.

I mean, I get it. You are completely blinded by partisanship, and since the merger got approved all that's left for you to do is spew vitriol on an internet forum. But man you are in need of some sort of other hobby.

MiamiAirport Formerly NY George

Whether FTs want to accept this or not, this is the future of domestic F, Hawaii included. International J (and F where available) are an entire different story because of the paid premium fares. The only exceptions you may see are airlines like VS and B6 (JFK/LAX/SFO) where the domestic F product is being sold and not used for upgrades.

McFlyPHL

Keep saying that "premium" vs. no frills line and maybe one day it'll be true. If you were to go back and read threads on the US board from the time of the HP merger, they read almost EXACTLY like the ones we see today (though I've yet to read the classic "these guys are idiots who don't understand what they bought" line here).

The "oh my gosh everyone was so embarrassed and filling out reams of comment cards about how terrible things are" narrative was (and likely remains) untrue. These guys get that. Things they mess up that impact customer behavior will most certainly be modified. Things that generate empty bluster (like "I'm not going to Hawaii anymore because my meal was served all at once and my butter wasn't in a ramekin") are ignored.

Once people and/or groups become identified with the latter they're pretty much ignored wholesale. That's (IMO) a big part of why the FFOCUS group lost the ear of the folks in the sand castle.

ORDGuy79

Agreed. If you can tie your complaints to AA's business objectives, chances are they will be recognized (and, ideally, worded to identify ways to actively drive change). For example, given the recent changes in AA's service, the next paid F trip to Hawaii may now be on DL because they have better onboard products (i.e. flat beds, 120V outlets, meal service, etc.).

Overall (and slightly OT), I felt AA had a strong offering among domestic carriers when it came to F meals (the lunch salads, in particular, were exceptional). What would have been a better proposition to drive increased customer satisfaction (and revenue gain) would have been to leverage the better negotiation skills with suppliers on the US side to make it more cost competitive.

MAH4546

I don't have to keep saying it. It is true. Why does that bother US loyalists so much?

The merger is said and done, and AA is becoming just like US. That's fine. I'll stop flying AA for the most part. AA won't miss me. It only becomes a problem for AA if tons of people like me leave. That happened at UA and it was a major problem and hurt United pretty badly as their numbers showed, and now UA is trying to fix that.

The scenario might repeat at US, or it may not.

And this is far more about the meals - it's clear that AA's friendly policies are being wiped out for US' unfriendly policies. Won't be long before EXPs will be paying for window seats near the front of the plane. And we are still waiting for the first US plane to get MCE. What's taking so long?

I have plenty of hobbies, thanks. But I get it too, it's perfectly okay for you to be blinded by your partisanship to US Airways to the extent where you think they have great service and it's cool charging elites for seating assignments, but when I'm blinded by partisanship, I need a hobby? Cool.

McFlyPHL

Simply put - it's false. Anyone who spends significant time on both airlines knows it. I don't say that as someone who flies US exclusively but as someone who flies pretty significantly on US, UA, and AA. The notion that AA was a bastion of "premium everything" is flat out untrue.

I'm sorry you don't like that that's a fact, perhaps you can stew about it from your seat on VX.

If you think that what hurt UA is their meal quality, you're kidding yourself. What killed them was terrible reliability, stripping away any benefits of loyalty (as a 1K my upgrade rate was maybe 40%, if that), and the lack of reliable internet connections fleetwide.

Of course, you ignore that in some instances AA had the less friendly policy. For example, as a CP I can move up for no charge and confirm a seat. On AA it's $75 to confirm but I can "standby" for free. The US side inherited the joy that is YQ on partner awards - amazingly customer friendly thing from AA. The list could go on...

On the whole, neither airline was terribly different than the other. There are things that were better on one end than the other for sure - but the notion that if it came from US it's bad/cheap/horrid and if it was from AA it was premium/awesome just isn't true. I don't really care which airline the end product looks like - they weren't terribly different to start with. To you, that makes me a blind US zombie. Just like your narrative of AA being oh-so-premium, repeating it over and over won't make it true.

But hey... enjoy VX (where everything is F8) and B6 (I wonder how long it'll take you to complain that <5% of their fleet even has Mint).

Fanjet

And what they also seem to leave out, is that F tickets are a lot cheaper than what they used to be. Pre-deregulation, an F ticket was 50% more than full-fare Y. Then, in the 90's, we began to see "instant upgrade" fares. But even then, that was off of a full-fare Y ticket. Now, we have F tickets (or A/I/P) that can be had for around $900 RT between west coast cities and east coast cities. Which isn't that much more than middle bucket coach fares. Are people willing to go back to F having a 50% fare premium over Y in order to retain that delicious meal on a 2hr flight served on a linen-lined tray?

MAH4546

It was far more than meal quality; but the same thing is happening at AA, an overall downgrade of the entire customer experience.

But meal policy will certainly have an impact - AA has the worst meal policy among domestic carriers, poor quality food on most flights and, with UA Express adding meals, is the only major with no meal service on RJs. That all makes a difference to some people.

And for the record the new meal policy doesn't even affect me. Being LA-based and rarely flying short hops, all my regular flights still have meals. But I don't want to stick around and watch American become US Airways more and more everyday.


If I want F, I pay for F. So neither of those things are relevant. I never complain about not getting an upgrade, it's not a right. I'll enjoy them both very much. I am perfectly happy when I fly coach.

McFlyPHL

Nearly a year in, it's not terribly different than it was for folks with travel patterns like ours. (mine being quite similar to yours from what I gather). To equate the changes at AA to the disaster that is UA under SMI/J is yet another false equivalence.

Then again, AA isn't flying RJs to the end of their range like some of the comeptitors (read: United). Guess what that food is? If you said sanwiches and chips you'd be right. Gosh, I wonder where else I get a sandwich and chips. If only the new AA had something like that...

Umm... then don't? A lot of us would rather not see some of AA's policies implemented on US. At the end of the day the royal we will win some and lose some. Even if the airline looked entirely like US and nothing like pmAA, the actual net impact is not huge. To claim otherwise shows that you have little if any experience with what the US product was leading up to the merger.



So, you know... good luck buying F on 95% of B6's flights. With VX's F8, maybe your lead time will not present an issue. A quick check of close-in flights shows most VX cabins full or with 1 seat left ex-LAX. But you know, sunshine and roses abound over there and everything will be perfect.

MAH4546

Delta actually has really good meals on RJs. And American did until last week, as well. There are few long RJ flights on AA, but they exist, including LAX-OKC/IAH/SAT/YEG. I expect a good quality meal, which isn't a "sandwhich and chips" on DL and often wasn't on pre-merger American Eagle. The "LiteBites" look disgusting, but to each his own.

I'm fine flying coach on JetBlue and I rarely fly close-in, so it's a non-issue for me. They both have superior products to US Airways.

I expect things will go quite well for me over there - great coach products, great First products, great customer friendly policies and, best of all, it's not US Airways. I'll see how things go with US, if they start turning around some of the cost cutting like UA and DL did post-merger, I'll give it a second look.

MAH4546

Nobody needs to go back to anything. American Airlines had an excellent meal program and profited $1.9B. I don't see people clamoring for filet mignons and lobster. Just a decent quality meal, like AA once had.