dvs7310

Not necessarily, in my case I might match back to UA, or even think about DL for a year, but will make zero effort to requal on them after that, OWE is a huge quality of life improvement over *G. I'll be looking for the easiest OWE balanced with award chart considering my travel patterns, which is probably not AA. The domestic upgrades are nice but not a huge priority for me since I fly domestic very little. My main priorities are lounge, priority boarding, seating when flying economy, and luggage, and I get those being any OWE, doesn't need to be AA. (Of course AA MCE is only a few airlines OWE now, but I reckon I can tolerate preferred seating for the few domestic hours I fly and just won't book AA metal if on international Economy anymore, easy enough to fly BA or IB to South America, same number of hours roughly).

Sure heavy domestic flyers are captive and will float amongst the big 3 (or AS now), but people like myself who log 90% of my miles international, are easy to go Free Agent and restart with a foreign carrier with relatively little impact to my benefits. I think it would be foolish of AA, UA, or DL to cast those people away this year. I expect quite a few of the AA EXPs, DL Diamonds, and UA 1Ks are very international heavy as well.

747-800i

EXP here, my flying is almost all international. I'd guess less than 10k of my EQM come from domestic flights in a given year.

355F1

Same here.

GunsOfNavarone

I qualified last year EXP all CONUS, and will requalify EXP this year in the next 30 days, all CONUS. I would love to qualify on wide body J seats OCONUS, but that is not how my business travel works. I cover 40 US states. Starting this summer, my area of responsibility is should be reduced to 16 states.

All I can say is near every AA flight is currently full. And lots of credit card applications being accepted by PAX. When the stimulus check money runs out, no idea what loads will be. But today... AA planes are FULL.

Adelphos

There are a lot of prior elites/EXPs that aren't flying now and are wondering what to do regarding status. I think people seem go be ignoring the fact that some people are apparently earning status now, and many more will be flying again relatively soon. And the current customer base can't be all leisure. Maybe there is some new class of elites that are flying now for work and leisure that these airlines need to court rather than those that qualified in 2019.

HaleiwaFlyer

Just flew out of PDX this morning, and it is the busiest that I have seen PDX since the pandemic started (I haven't stopped flying since pandemic). AA flights are always full. Connected PHX to HNL, and the flight is full too.

AA has no reason to extend status, as the pandemic is not holding people back from flying, and the volume is ramping back up. The volume definitely won't reach pre-pandemic levels, unless companies return to pre-pandemic level of travel. Had the US limited or made domestic travel difficult secondary to regulations, then I would have expected AA and other airlines to extend status. Doubtful any extension will be given out this year.

enviroian

I neither agree or disagree with this comment. It's up to AA what they want to do of course. However if they don't extend status because people are flying so much again then they need to resume service to pre-covid levels, full stop.

Also if UA and DL extend status AA will do so in a microsecond.

aztimm

What percentage of AA aircraft are still parked?
It is wonderful that AA and other airlines are able to fully utilize some of their aircraft, but as long as some are still not in use at all, it doesn't really matter that flights that you are on are full.

I do remember reading a story that AA will be un-parking the remainder of their aircraft, I believe the date is either May 1 or May 15, I can't remember which.
Many companies, mine included, have halted any company-related travel. Well mine does permit some, with the approval of the CEO or one of his direct reports. Things will remain like this until after Labor Day.

GunsOfNavarone

I have no idea. I am currently at the Marriot DFW overlooking the runway (attached is the just snapped picture). AA planes waiting in a continual line to take off, so although unscientific, seems like AA is flying their birds. Two weeks ago I flew on a CR7 with a 1980s like interior (picture attached) that I never saw before.... so I speculated they are in need of using some of their older aircraft. Yes, widebodies are underutilized, but AA seems like they are running a hefty amount of their fleet, and retired what they no longer want to fly.

355F1

haha....this is key.

They probably already have the software encoded to announce this jussssst in case!

aztimm

They weren't parked at DFW:
https://onemileatatime.com/american-...ounded-planes/


Have you visited any of those airports and seen the aircraft parked?

GunsOfNavarone

That article is over a year old......

aztimm

Exactly. It is where AA parked their planes last year. My question was, "how many are still parked?"

What do the take-off lines look like for AA at JFK, PHL, ORD, and LAX?
There was a recent thread about someone trying to fly QR from JFK on an AA miles issued ticket. They had issues, and by 8pm there were no AA employees present. 2 years ago, if memory serves, AA had flights from JFK until about midnight.

enviroian

Wow that definitely looks first generation EMB-145 CO EX flew in 1998.

355F1

Quite a few parked AA birds here at PHX, too.