American Ranked Last Again in Operational Performance (WSJ Jan 2020)
Jan 15, 2020, 12:51 pm
#16
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AA's priorities are shareholders > employees > customers, when it ought to go employees > customers > shareholders. Put customers last, finish last.
Jan 15, 2020, 1:58 pm
#18
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I used to be loyal to AA, and only fly DL on occasion simply because AAdvantage was far superior to Skymiles. Now that AA has matched DL in this department, I usually fly with DL or its partners, and don't put a lot of thought into miles or status any more as long as I can hit SM or GM on DL. IME, DL is honestly a nicer airline than AA on pretty much all fronts now. That having been said, if I lived near an AA hub airport, I'd endure AA in order to get nonstop flights. The gap isn't big enough to justify connections.
Jan 15, 2020, 3:28 pm
#19
Join Date: Aug 2005
Posts: 392
executive team >> shareholders > employees > customers
Since they appear to be setting up the company to go into BK again during the next economic turn down, which will work out nicely for the shareholders...
But who can tell?
saunders111
Jan 15, 2020, 3:43 pm
#20
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Actually, the amount makes a big difference. If you're willing to keep upping the amount of compensation to change flights, you'll basically always be able to find someone to take your deal. I think DL maxes out at ~$10K in vouchers for VDB compensation. The number of times when you couldn't find enough volunteers for that sort of compensation would be very low--probably about 9 per year.
Sure it does. There's a lot more involved to profitability than VDB compensation, and DL is doing a better job at most of them. Not AA, but I've nearly been IDBed off an Alaska flight where they maxed out at IDB compensation that was roughly a third of what they'd have to pay me in IDB flight (I had a full Y ticket, but had also checked in last). So it's also possible that being more generous with VDB money can actually result in better profitability for some airlines.
That's definitely true too, but the reason why DL hardly IDBs anyone is because of their approach to VDB compensation. It's also possible they are better at overbooking than AA, but not three orders of magnitude better.
Sure it does. There's a lot more involved to profitability than VDB compensation, and DL is doing a better job at most of them. Not AA, but I've nearly been IDBed off an Alaska flight where they maxed out at IDB compensation that was roughly a third of what they'd have to pay me in IDB flight (I had a full Y ticket, but had also checked in last). So it's also possible that being more generous with VDB money can actually result in better profitability for some airlines.
That's definitely true too, but the reason why DL hardly IDBs anyone is because of their approach to VDB compensation. It's also possible they are better at overbooking than AA, but not three orders of magnitude better.
Jan 15, 2020, 3:47 pm
#21
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Of course, if DL decides that it's better to pay high VDB compensation to have a better chance of keeping the pax's future business, it would also stand to reason that they'd charge the VDB comp to the revenue management department, which disincentivizes aggressive overbooking: it turns selling one more ticket and counting on one more misconnect into a game of picking up dollar coins in front of a bulldozer.
Jan 15, 2020, 4:04 pm
#22
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Jan 15, 2020, 5:11 pm
#23
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Off point but kind of indicative of the difference between Delta and AA, so I flew Delta last week in coach and on both flights when the fa asked what my wife and I wanted to drink they addressed us as Mr and Mrs abk. I was amazed as that happens less than half the time in J or F on AA. That on top of they served a real lunch in the Sky club and the free liquor was brands you recognized.
Jan 15, 2020, 5:41 pm
#24
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Even if we gave AA a pass ("the airline industry is a tough business"
) for vaporizing 14% of its shareholders wealth over the past 12 months when the S&P 500 surged 26%, one notes that DAL actually outperformed $SPX with a 28% gain over the same time period. LUV and UAL badly trailed the overall $SPX but still produced positive returns.
Jan 15, 2020, 6:38 pm
#25
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I have no idea how on Earth that poster concluded that AA is run for its shareholders' benefit. And someone else posted that Parker runs the airline by the numbers. Those claims are positively laughable. AA is arguably far worse to its shareholders than its customers.
Even if we gave AA a pass ("the airline industry is a tough business" ) for vaporizing 14% of its shareholders wealth over the past 12 months when the S&P 500 surged 26%, one notes that DAL actually outperformed $SPX with a 28% gain over the same time period. LUV and UAL badly trailed the overall $SPX but still produced positive returns.
Even if we gave AA a pass ("the airline industry is a tough business"
) for vaporizing 14% of its shareholders wealth over the past 12 months when the S&P 500 surged 26%, one notes that DAL actually outperformed $SPX with a 28% gain over the same time period. LUV and UAL badly trailed the overall $SPX but still produced positive returns.
Jan 15, 2020, 6:59 pm
#26
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Reviewing the ranking of the airlines I would say that these rankings mirror my experience on AA and DL. The problem with AA is that they just...don't...care. Between poor labor relations, disgruntled employees, operationally challenging hubs (some of which operate overcapacity on a good day) and poor recovery efforts after WX issues, AA is just one big, festering dumpster fire. I just do not have the issues on DL that I have on AA.
In fact, things have gotten so bad on AA that I did something I swore I'd never do again...I've started flying UA again after getting status matched to Premier 1K earlier this month. At least I'm flying the 8th worst airline instead of the 9th worst one.
In fact, things have gotten so bad on AA that I did something I swore I'd never do again...I've started flying UA again after getting status matched to Premier 1K earlier this month. At least I'm flying the 8th worst airline instead of the 9th worst one.
Jan 15, 2020, 7:09 pm
#28
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The problem isn’t that the airline is run for any particular group, the problem is that the airline just isn’t even run at all. The current management has no clue what they’re doing or even how to go about running the airline, which is why all you ever see are policies that copy DL/UA yet zero of the customer service or operational positives that DL brings to the table.
I’m honestly shocked that Parker has been kept around this long and I knew from the beginning US(HP) attempting to run AA would be a complete dumpster fire.
I’m honestly shocked that Parker has been kept around this long and I knew from the beginning US(HP) attempting to run AA would be a complete dumpster fire.
Jan 15, 2020, 7:20 pm
#29
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Not surprising particularly given how bad the summer months were. Though it's amusing, while we have things like this being ranked last in operational performance, there are also posts floating around on FT to the effect of "American needs to stop being so hung up on hitting D0 time!"
It'd be interesting seeing more data on delays, causes, locality to certain airports, etc. Could have sworn I found that on the internet somewhere at some point.
It'd be interesting seeing more data on delays, causes, locality to certain airports, etc. Could have sworn I found that on the internet somewhere at some point.
Jan 15, 2020, 7:25 pm
#30
Join Date: Dec 2019
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I've considered switching to UA and flying out of SFO instead of AA in SJC. But UA does too good a job of monetizing their premium cabins. I'd rather be sitting in front on the 9th airline than in the back on the 8th one.
