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Yesterday’s American Airlines announcement about the introduction of Premium Economy cabins across their long-haul fleet really annoyed me. And the annoyance had nothing to do with the devaluation in AAdvantage Executive Platinum status that the introduction of a Premium Economy cabin could have.
It was annoying because, once again, American Airlines put out an announcement that leaves frequent fliers with more questions than answers.
At the beginning of November American decided to announce changes to its AAdvantage loyalty program via a series of leaks (yes, those leaks were almost certainly deliberate). We had a drip feed of information that smacked of amateurism and, when they finally got around to formally announcing the changes, they still couldn’t tell us the full details.
We still don’t know when in “late 2016” AAdvantage will convert to being a revenue-based loyalty program despite the fact the airline must have been working on the changes for months. We don’t even know, for certain, if flights booked before the revenue-based program comes into effect (but that are flown after the change) will earn miles based on the old rules or the new ones.
It’s pathetic.
American Airlines New Premium Economy Seating
Yesterday’s announcement wasn’t any better.
We’ve been told that the new Premium Economy cabins will be fitted on American’s wide-body fleet but, apart from the seating plan for the Dreamliner (2-3-2), we know nothing of what is planned for the rest of the fleet.
Just a few of the unanswered questions:
- How wide will the seats be? Presumably American Airlines knows this (it would be nothing short of shambolic if they didn’t) so why aren’t they saying?
- How many seats do they plan to put in a row on the 777-300s, 777-200, A350s and A330s? American already squeezes 10 seats across the Economy Class cabin in the 777-300 (so flyers know to do their best to avoid that!) but what can we expect of the Premium Economy cabins? Don’t they know?
- How many rows of Premium Economy can we expect on the 777-300s, 777-200, A350s and A330s? It would be nice to know if this is going to be a limited offering (just a few seats) or if it’s going to be a sizeable cabin in its own right.
- Which seats will be removed to allow for the introduction of the Premium Economy cabin? Will we be seeing a significant decrease in Business Class cabins across the fleet (which would result in even worse premium award availability than we’re already seeing) or will they be removing seats at the front of the Economy cabin (which would see Main Cabin Extra losing an exit row on the 777-300s).
The Main Cabin Extra exit row on American’s 777-300ERs
- Will we still have dedicated rows of Main Cabin Extra seating or will these be relegated to the occasional exit row and bulkhead? American has stated that it’s keeping Main Cabin Extra but they’ve given no indication as to what form it will take. Will it be a token gesture that will be swallowed up by the first few people to book seats or will there still be a good number of seats to choose from?
- What will the mileage redemption be for Premium Economy fares? We’ve just had a massive overhaul of the AAdvantage award charts in November so can we now expect yet another revision just a few months later? One would assume that the answer is yes but apparently American isn’t in a position to tell us one way or the other.
And now we come to the big question (for AAdvantage Executive Platinum members at least):
- Will Systemwide Upgrades (SWUs), that currently only allow a one-cabin upgrade, continue work in the same way? (i.e. will SWUs now only upgrade from Economy to Premium Economy)? This is a massive question for American’s top-tier elites and the airline must have known that this would be one of the first questions asked…but they’re not telling us.
Not only are they not telling us but they seem not to have briefed their social media teams about this either.
Unsurprisingly, various Executive Platinum members (EXPs) contacted the American Airlines Twitter team to see what they had to say about the future upgrades.
AA Twitter team just replied to me and made clear that Premium Economy is still considered Economy and SWU upgrades from Regular Economy will still book into C.
Note: For the avoidance of doubt “C” is shorthand for Business Class
That was great news…..until different replies started to come in and the Twitter team backtracked:
@askanter Until Premium Economy is assigned a fare class it’s too soon to say exactly what the upgrade polices or rates will be applied. (Link)
@Aero0729 Yes, at this time. Until Premium economy is assigned a fare class it’s too soon to say what the upgrade policies will be. (Link)
They even managed to contradict themselves in the same Twitter conversation:
It was (and still is) a shambles and how American Airlines didn’t see this coming is beyond me.
Why This Matters
The question of SWUs and how they’ll work going forward together with the fate of Main Cabin Extra will be extremely important to how American Airlines’ frequent flyers see their status benefits.
If SWUs no longer allow upgrades from Economy to Business class that will be seen as a massive devaluation in EXP status and, if Main Cabin Extra is no more than a few seats dotted around the cabin, most American Airlines flyers will struggle to ever reserve those seats if they don’t book 6+ months in advance – another devaluation.
Travelers are booking their tickets for 2016 now and that means they’re making decisions on what status to aim for right at this moment in time – they deserve to know what benefits that status will be giving them in 2017. They also deserve to know what value they can place on any AAdvantage miles they earn.
It’s already too late for me as I have over 85,000 miles booked with American next year so I’m not going to be able to hit top-tier status with another airline if I choose to move away – but that’s not the case for a lot of others.
If top-tier status is to be devalued even further (as I suspect it will be), those 100,000 mile flyers should be told exactly what their status will get them in 2017 before they commit to flying on American next year – it’s only fair – but American is flat-out not giving them that information.
Fly 100,000 miles for EXP status but there’s no guarantee the benefits will be worth it.
Bottom Line
The rumors going around are that American Airlines felt that Delta was about to announce its own Premium Economy cabin in the next few days and they wanted to get a jump on them by announcing first. Well, they managed to do that, but they also managed to create a lot of uncertainty and a lot of confusion into the bargain.
While the the airline has dealt with the merger in an admirable and efficient way (mostly) they haven’t dealt with the changes to AAdvantage and the introduction of Premium Economy cabins well at all.
Between the lies surrounding the AAdvantage/British Airways award charts, the leaked information about the changes to AAdvantage and now the half-baked Premium Economy cabin announcement, they look like an amateur outfit not used to dealing with the number of flyers they have (which is certainly true of the former US Airways executives).
They seem unaware of how many people are affected by changes they put through, they don’t seem to know how to disseminate information to their customers and they don’t seem to understand the importance of being clear and honest in their intentions. The crux of the matter is this: Either they’re incompetent or they don’t care what effect their announcements have on customers and, either way, that doesn’t paint them in a great light.
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