sanFF

I am concerned about my Lifetime America West Club Membership. US has held us as sub class members and denied recripocal access to United Club network without a upcharge. I hear there was a discussion to do to LT members what AA did to TWA Ambassador members who had lifetime but that was nixed during the merger of US/AW. So knowig AA history I am a bit
nervous as to what may transpire. Any thoughts?
I am assuming that AA policy will prevail for the club with free spirits
wich would be a good thing.

remedy

I was lifetime in the TWA Ambassador Club. When AA took over TWA, they told me there was no lifetime Admirals Club and sent me a three-year membership.

FWAAA

Yes, that's because AA purchased certain assets and assumed certain (but not all) liabilities of the failing TWA. Perhaps lifetime club memberships are a liability that AA should have assumed, but that's water that went under the bridge 12 years ago.

In this transaction, US and AA will merge, and since US isn't in bankruptcy, it cannot void the lifetime HP or US memberships. AA is in Ch 11 and it did not reject AA lifetime Admirals Club memberships.

But that doesn't automatically mean that the new AA will grant access to all clubs to those lifetime members. The new AA could say "you have lifetime access to the clubs that were part of the network when you paid your lifetime membership." I don't think the new AA would pull such a customer-unfriendly stunt, but it certainly could.

FWAAA

I agree with you - hard to believe that he wouldn't choose his words a little more carefully. Those comments are just plane bizarre.

Were the AA execs lying when they said that the ATI joint ventures with BA/IB and with JAL would add hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues each year?

Parker has been quoted over the last several years as expressing disappointment that US was not admitted to the existing *A TATL immunized joint venture.

Of the four legacy airlines, US had the lowest yield on its TATL network in the third quarter of 2012, which might be related to the CLT hub and to the absence of ATI with UA/LH. Not belonging to an immunized joint venture with UA/LH, US had to compete with its alliance partners instead of cooperating with them, like AA and DL get to do with their immunized joint venture partners. Apparently, UA/LH would rather compete with US than share profits via an immunized joint venture.

I wouldn't have expected Parker to say anything nasty about his *A "partners" but I would have expected more than "The American team thinks we gain a lot by being in oneworld." Wow.

serfty

Not for well over a year...

DCdeacon

How can AA grow at JFK? JFK is slot controlled, and unless I'm missing something, I don't believe AA has a bunch of unused slots lying around, so they really don't have much room to grow, do they? This seems to be the biggest reason PHL is safe--you can shift all the connecting traffic that currently goes through PHL to NYC because of slot restrictions and no ability to handle that increased capacity.

dtremit

For many people, that would include a lot of (ex-CO) UA and (ex-NW) DL lounges. Probably best not to go down that path.

I suspect US has to pay a certain amount per-visit or per year for its members to access UA lounges -- that would certainly not be the case for AA clubs.

AS clubs might be another story.

FWAAA

Several ways to grow at JFK. IIRC, slots outside the 3pm to 9pm prime-time period are available for the asking, which would enable additional flights to places like Asia, as they tend to leave NYC earlier or much later than the prime-time period. In addition, lots of domestic flights could be added during the 10 hours preceding 3pm.

Last time I checked the AA schedule, AA was flying some 22 domestic flights between 3pm and 9pm to places like TPA, BWI, etc and many of those amount to little more than slot-parking, as AA was waiting to lower its costs in Ch 11 prior to starting new international flights.

Some of those slots on which AA has been parking were acquired in a slot trade with B6 (AA traded some DCA slots for some JFK slots) and it's likely that if it made sense to acquire more prime-time slots, B6 could be tempted to sell a few more. Probably not going to get any away from DL, but B6 might be more cooperative for the right price.

That said, new AA has a dominant position at PHL, and it supports numerous international flights, so I agree, PHL is not in danger of being downsized, despite some internet blather to the contrary.

DCdeacon

Thanks for the explanation, I didn't realize JFK's slots were structured that way. Even so, given that LGA can't grow due to slot restrictions, I still see PHL being pretty important for moving connecting traffic around the Northeast.

ExpatExp

I live in Europe and find that OneWorld (including the new AA) is very attractive

jbcarioca

During 26 years of residence in Europe I found it typically not hard to use whichever alliance I preferred at the time. IN NCE, my home airport for most of that time ST was the obvious choice, but *A and OW were not at all difficult to use.

Anyway, citizenship has nothing to do with convenience of choices. Airport locations do. At FRA, for example OW and ST are obviously less easy than is *A.

Broad generalizations really do not work well with this subject.

doctor15

Really?? While Y sucks on any airline, I found the food and AVOD to be much better then AA or most airlines. If you fly J, Iberia blows an US based airline out of the water, not just in flight but their premium ground service (lounge, security, etc) is awesome.

LM225

Just realized this also means we won't be able to track our accounts in AwardWallet, as AAdvantage is disabled on there. Tiny issue, but another annoyance for someone who uses AW as his central hub for keeping track of elite programs.

skycubbie

I would be surprised to see the new AA cede any ground in PHL as they are the number one carrier. Regarding tweaking the PHL TATL schedule versus AA's JFK I'd be curious to see the mix of O/D to connecting passengers and the net revenue for each route. There's a fee of some sort that is levied to the airline per passenger (at least, I think that's what it's called) and what is the difference between PHL and JFK? All that has to play a role in JFK vs PHL route structuring going forward.

FWAAA

I agree that PHL's role is probably pretty safe.

That said, NYC has more international O&D than any other USA gateway. For example, AA and BA (who have an immunized joint venture) fly some 12-14 daily flights combined from JFK to LHR in peak season. In addition, there's a lot of domestic O&D to NYC from outside the LGA perimeter (like the west coast) for which JFK is the AA option unless someone really wants to connect on the way so they can land at LGA. Those flights help feed the numerous international flights at JFK, and in all likelihood, will continue to do so. Airlines have to fly where the people want to go, and NYC is one of the biggest of those destinations.