American Airlines Comes Last in Rankings (and Its Pilots Pile On)

[Mike Wise]

Article: http://www.inc.com/chris-matyszczyk...-last-in-rankings-and-its-pilots-pile-on.html

Absurdly Driven looks at the world of business with a skeptical eye and a firmly rooted tongue in cheek.



What do you do when the company you work for gets bad news?

Do you smile sheepishly at dinner parties and tell everyone that you're "looking around"?

Do you not bother going to dinner parties for a while until some better news comes along?

Or do you issue a press release chuckling at your company's misfortune?

I only ask because this last option is one that seems to have been taken by pilots at American Airlines.

The Allied Pilots Association, which represents 15,000 American Airlines pilots, just issued a press release entitled: "American Airlines is Last in Rankings But First in Revenue."

If you think this seems to be lacking a certain ra-ra element, you'd be right.

The pilots took one look at the Wall Street Journal's Best And Worst Airlines rankings for 2016 and snorted.

American did, indeed, even come behind such luminaries as Frontier and Spirit in a survey that looked at many aspects of the airline experience, including late arrivals, canceled flights, very bad delays, baggage snafus, involuntary bumping, and, oh, just general complaints.

The pilots sound a strange mixture of delighted and appalled: "In fact, American Airlines has never managed anything better than sixth place for the past six years."

They wonder: "How long will the company's customers tolerate such poor performance? Stay tuned."

For quite a long time, I imagine.

There really isn't that much choice when it comes to airlines. For example, when I flew from San Francisco to Miami last month, the only non-stop option I could find was with American.

Naturally, the pilots have an agenda. As I mentioned not too long ago, American pilots are a touch underpaid by industry standards.

And as these disappointing rankings were released, American announced a rather healthy unit revenue for the last quarter.

Which led the pilots to offer this: "There's just no substitute for enjoying a cost advantage on the backs of your pilots, apparently."

American didn't respond when I asked it about this flying carping.

One or two travelers, though, might wonder whether giving the pilots more money would make American's service any better.

Or is there something institutionally decrepit in the airline industry that forces air travel to be an increasingly unpleasant experience?

American seems to enjoy slightly troubled relations with its employees. Why, the cabin crew are even complaining that their new uniforms are making them sick.

Inside the airline, it all seems to come down to aggravation and money. For the passengers, however, we'd really just like to sit back and enjoy the flight.

Oddly, we so rarely do.

SO what's up AA?? tighten up!

 

[Kingairer]

Unions doing what they do.

 

[Roger Roger]

Being still about halfway through "flying the line" this sounds pretty much exactly like AAL circa 1939.

 

[ian]

iirc according to their CEO, the front line employees have no effect on the bottom line there.

 

[Boris Badenov]

At the risk of being nailed as another simpering Derg-worshipper, fly Delta, it's noticeably, appreciably better. Like unless there's weather, I'll take a hub turn on Delta over direct on anything else.

It seems to me that we have gotten so locked in to the narrative that US airlines all stink and it's systemic etc etc that we fail to notice when someone is doing it better. And I suppose the AA pilots have a point...What makes the difference AFAICT is employees who give a poop and feel invested in providing their services to the best of their abilities. Shrug.

 

[BEEF SUPREME]

I tried to fly on Delta but it was all Air France. And it was glorious.

 

[AAPalmTree]

Does this mean we aren't KDA'ing?
@Seggy

 

[Kingairer]

AA isn't even done with merging everything and on the flight side that's all happened in the last few months. I'd say they came through all the growing pains pretty well. The product is only now being streamlined and upgraded. You can chose to believe whatever you would like, but you have to consider the source of the anger.

 

[NickH]

My recent transatlantic business class flight was tragic. If Atlanta had a Centurion....

 

[CoffeeIcePapers]

At the risk of being nailed as another simpering Derg-worshipper, fly Delta, it's noticeably, appreciably better. Like unless there's weather, I'll take a hub turn on Delta over direct on anything else.

It seems to me that we have gotten so locked in to the narrative that US airlines all stink and it's systemic etc etc that we fail to notice when someone is doing it better. And I suppose the AA pilots have a point...What makes the difference AFAICT is employees who give a poop and feel invested in providing their services to the best of their abilities. Shrug.

Same here. I life in DFW and try to take Delta when possible.

 

[learhawkerbe400]

And the circle jerk begins


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[flyingbum]

And the circle jerk begins


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Speak for yourself Man.. That's what the P0rn is for.

 

[CoffeeIcePapers]

And the circle jerk begins


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I must be at the wrong website. I'm here for the gangbang.

 

[Table Two]

Honestly the product that Ual and Dal put out from a pax point of view is light years ahead of Aal.

If you're feeling lucky, try connecting through PHL and asking a gate agent for help. Or make a tight connection from landing at "the world" to the gates 23-34 at DCA. Or a tight connection from E38 to B16 in CLT.

This was a gangbang on AA right?

 

[Murdoughnut]

I recently shut down my AA Mastercard for a Southwest one, and have started choosing United for business travel. AA's changes to their mileage policy was the primary reason for the switch. That and my Star Alliance international network at TPA is more robust.

 

[learhawkerbe400]

Honestly the product that Ual and Dal put out from a pax point of view is light years ahead of Aal.

If you're feeling lucky, try connecting through PHL and asking a gate agent for help. Or make a tight connection from landing at "the world" to the gates 23-34 at DCA. Or a tight connection from E38 to B16 in CLT.

This was a gangbang on AA right?

Yea AA sucks. But don't act like the minimum wage rampers/agents at DL are any better.

 

[TowJoe]

iirc according to their CEO, the front line employees have no effect on the bottom line there.

This one on profit sharing? “It’s just not the right way to pay 100,000 employees that don’t have that much impact on the daily profits.” Doug Parker

 

[TowJoe]

But do they lead the category of CEOs with the most DUIs?

 

[wheelsup]

This one on profit sharing? “It’s just not the right way to pay 100,000 employees that don’t have that much impact on the daily profits.” Doug Parker

The board should have fired Parker after that comment. You knew what he was getting at but that isn't the way to attempt to motivate your 100,000 employees. Just stupid. He will never live that down and any attempt by AA to improve service will never be successful. I can still see him standing there saying that and it still pisses me off. Until he's gone I won't give a crap. I feel horrible that it's come to that but that's the way 80%+ line workers feel IMO.

AA has a chance if Isom takes over.

 

[MikeD]

I fly AA regularly for both business and pleasure, and the flight/cabin crews and service......both in the air and at the gates/ticket counter, etc......have always been pleasant and efficient. Never had a bad experience.