These two moderately interesting news pieces out of the American Airlines (AA) universe have been reported upon quite a bit by the usual talking heads, so I’ll simply present the news here and give just a little snippet of my thoughts on these changes.
In a move that surprised nobody who was paying attention to the writing on the wall, AA announced that they will be discontinuing their popular (yet unpublished) soft landing policy for those holding elite status. A soft landing in this context refers to an airline’s decision to reduce an elite member’s status by a single level when they fail to requalify for their existing status, regardless of what their travel patterns have earned for that qualifying year.
Still a bit confused? Let’s use yours truly as an example.
I’m currently an AA Executive Platinum (EXP), which is AA’s top status tier. To keep EXP status, I need to fly one of the following: 100K elite qualifying miles (EQM), 100K elite qualifying points (EQP), or fly 100 elite qualifying segements (EQS). If I were to fly 15K EQM, 7.5K EQP, and only 3 EQS for the year, AA’s soft landing policy would reduce my status level to its mid-tier offering – Platinum. The amount of flying I did for the year isn’t even enough to qualify for the airline’s lowest tier status (Gold), but the unpublished policy would allow me to retain a higher level of status as a courtesy. Should I not take any AA flights after soft landing to Platinum, I would soft land again to Gold status. It’s really quite a generous policy AA has utilized over the years.
It goes without saying that this is a popular benefit with many travelers, so there are a fair number of individuals mourning the loss of this policy. Yet there are others who would applaud AA’s decision to force fliers to accept the status they’ve earned.
Speaking of mildly controversial policy changes, AA also recently announced they’d be utilizing a new boarding procedure for their flights. Following a trial period that started in March of this year, the carrier has decided that they’ll allow travelers flying without luggage (excluding personal items such as a laptop bag, purse, backpack, etc…) to board early.
Under the new policy, AA’s boarding order now looks like this:
While at first blush it seems rather customer friendly, I’m not sure I’m the biggest fan of this change. I tend to agree with Seth at Wandering Aramean’s take on this change – it potentially penalizes some of AA’s better customers and really provides no actual benefit to those who qualify for early boarding. Honestly, if you’re not in first or business class, who would want to get on the crowded and cramped aluminum tube earlier just so you can sit and watch everyone else stuff their suitcases into an overhead bin? No one. To be honest, even when I am in first or business class, I often wait in the airport till the very end of boarding. Most folks would rather finish the sandwich they bought because they know the food on board isn’t going to be that great, make their way through another frosty beer at the bar near the gate, or skip off to the bathroom for some relief in an effort to avoid having to get up on their flight.
If the procedure actually helps board the plane a little quicker, I suppose that’s the one real tangible benefit I can see from this change.
So that’s the latest from the AA universe. It’ll be interesting to see if there’s any real long term impact caused by the decision to drop soft landings (I doubt it) and to see how AA’s flight attendants enjoy the added bonus of policing early boarding passengers to make sure their personal items don’t end up in the overhead bins (I’m guessing they won’t be very happy).
Photo Credit: American Airlines