Hey, I'm not exactly telling you something you haven't heard here before — probably often enough to last you a lifetime.
Nevertheless, it's always interesting to chart the progress of an industry circling the drain.
The vortex picked up a bit more speed with today's USA Today story by Marilyn Adams about American Airlines' decision, annnounced yesterday, to eliminate pillows from most of its domestic flights.
First punctuality, than attitude, then food, then leg room, now pillows: what's next, one wonders?
Perhaps the seats?
They could reconfigure their planes to carry passengers like the giant troop transports used by the military: that'd save a bundle.
What I especially like is the amount American's going to save annually by dumping the pillows: $375,000.
I suspect that's about what the soon-to-be departing CEO's "golden parachute" lists as his annual "consulting fee," payable — with allowance for inflation — for the rest of his life.
Sweet.
DeadIndustryFlying is more like it.
Article comments
1 - RJ
JetBlue and SoutWest are doing quite well, I understand. As is Song and some others (Delta?).
The industry is not dying, just some of its largest companies.
2 - Kevin
Gerard Arpey, CEO of AMR, parent of American Airlines, is not departing soon as the article states. In fact, he's only been on the job a little over a year.
The amount of money saved, as quoted in the article, is in addition to the $300,000 per year savings from removing pillows from AA's MD-80 fleet, which took place in November. The total savings is $675,000 annually. This also does not take into account the amount of money AA will save in manpower, as it will take less time to clean the plane, therefore increasing on-time departures and reducing the number of people to clean the plane.
As for legroom, AA is number one in the industry for legroom. When they launched their "More Room Throughout Coach" initiative in 2000, it was an industry first. However, the past five years have proven difficult financially for the industry, and passengers have refused to pay a premium for the added leg space. AA is forced to add seats to an industry standard in order to stay competitive and eek out every last cent from each seat. Ticket prices are at 20 year lows, and if you, as a consumer, aren't willing to pay for the extras, then the extras have to go. Simple economics.
Fortunately, I've seen a number of columns on AA's decision to add seats back to its aircraft and the majority of the columnists blame the consumer for not coughing up the extra dough.
American became one of the last "Big Six" to sell food. Why did they make the jump? Passengers wanted it. AA's Bistro service has always ranked low in passenger surveys, and when questioned if they would rather purchase a snack instead of have it included in the ticket price, passengers overwhelmingly chose the buy-on-board snack. The program just started February 1, and already demand is higher than expected, resulting in the company's immediate increase in provisioning per flight.
A lesser known change to the beverage service is AA recently committed to increasing the number of drinks provisioned per flight, allowing each customer to have a full can, without having to ask for it.
People complain about the perks going, but when you're paying less and less for your ticket, and airlines are paying more and more for fuel, something has got to give. Little comforts that are largely undervalued by the consumer are the first to go, and pillows are among the least important ammenities passengers are looking for.
3 - DrPat
I suspect this is the latest in a long series of industry shakeouts - the weak will fall by the wayside, the strong will absorb the resources made available, and some middle-ground players will merge for security. Airlines are just the latest industry to go through this rite of passage.
4 - Lono
Funny, I had that exact conversation with a friend at work today "what is next? Will they fly us on metal benches like military transports".
call me a throwback, or a reconstructionist... really anything that sounds cool will do - but I believe the airlines need to be regulated for their own good. They are managing themselves out of business. Since I as a tax payer am going to have to subsidize all of this anyway... let's step in now and get rid of all the pinhead leadership.
Manage the airlines to 11.5% profit, which is exactly what Colorado public utilities (monopolies, like gas & electricity) have to manage to.
Overall though, I don't paying for food if it is necessary.
5 - JAMMER
You wonder what American Airlines' next move will be. Well if you fly AA a lot, better start saving your quarters for the pay toilets, and hope you can get your quarters past the security people.
6 - Corey
Nice plug for "Hard Landing". This book is 9 years old. Considering the huge profits we made in the late '90s, I do not have to read it to know that its relevance is lacking.
I just love the people that whine about airline service. You get on a flight at 1:00pm in ORD. You are scheduled to arrive at DFW in 2.5 hours and you freak out when you don't get fed? Do you sit at work, or home, and eat a full meal in the afternoon? Didn't think so. Get over it - pack some celery sticks, chew on them loudly and annoy the people sitting near you. My favorite past-time is watching the people in first class start to salivate when they bring out the hot lemon towels. Utter bliss is all over their face as they wipe their forehead and their hands. When was the last time you microwaved a towel at home and wiped your face with it?
Punctuality? Perspective is needed here. How many of you can get anywhere, on time, with any consistency? And you're just dealing with a spouse and maybe a couple of kids going to the in-laws for dinner. Try doing this with something as complicated as an airline. It should amaze no-one that we are late. What is amazing is that we are on time as much as we are. The next you fly ask to be pre-boarded so that you can watch other people as they board. It takes some people 5 minutes to go through their ritual of finding a spot for their golf clubs, suit bag, laptop computer, and bag of work/reading material. Just when you think they are going to sit down and get the h*ll out of your way they remember they need something from the laptop case, and oops, gotta take this jacket off.
Attitude? Employees of ANY company will treat their customers as if they were a mirror. Try being nice to the kid at 7-11 next time he can't figure how to make change from a $20.00 bill.
Sure Southwest is doing great. That is a class organization that understands that you can both pay organized laborers well and get productivity out of them. The legacy carriers do neither.
Jetblue has not yet matured. How much longer can they post profits before every labor group wants a bigger piece of the pie? I give them 3 years tops.
Pretty simple to regulate the airlines. What a concept!
How bout next time you fly you actually pay what it costs for the service? Or you can go to cheaptickets.com and find the lowest fare. When you get on that airline, try not to think about the pilots having less total time in that aircraft than you spent driving back and forth to work last month. I have worked in the flight operations department of a legacy carrier for 22 years. Trust me, you get what you pay for.
7 - DrPat
Corey, you appear not appear to have read many of the posts at this site. (I do not have to read [Hard Landings] to know that its relevance is lacking.)
We all find at least one Amazon-listed item to include with our posts, however dated. Joe is commenting about the USA Today story, not Hard Landings.
Also, though some of the people who commented have done so, Joe was not complaining about lack of service, but speculating where American Airlines might cut costs to find funds to stay in business.
8 - Phillip Beall
All,
As for RJ's comments about Southwest and JetBlue - they are the only two airlines making a profit right now.
1) Southwest has their fuel hedged until 2007 at about $27 per barrel of oil.
2) JetBlue got a great deal from Airbus (read European socialist employment program). Airbus let them have every single plane they operate for five years - with no maintenance cost.
Southwest's timing on their fuel hedge was indeed fortuitous. If nobody else had to pay for their maintenance then many or all of them would be making money too.
The next time you get on a JetBlue or Southwest flight from some smaller city like Des Moines that connects to Frankfurt or Tokyo, that will be an interesting development. In the mean time they simply poach flights off the domestic routes of the carriers that have a huge network to allow people from Des Moines and other smaller cities to get a connecting flight to some far flung location.
Passengers have only one real complaint - its that they can't get paid to fly in first class and eat caviar everywhere they go, at least that's the way it seems. They want first class seating, first class service, and first class equipment, but they want to pay Greyhound bus rates and then complain when their seat mate is a Greyhound class of customer. Oh yeah, I want triple air miles because I'm special is a common attitude too...
Regards,
Phil
9 - Temple Stark
>>Punctuality? Perspective is needed here. How many of you can get anywhere, on time, with any consistency? And you're just dealing with a spouse and maybe a couple of kids going to the in-laws for dinner. Try doing this with something as complicated as an airline. It should amaze no-one that we are late. What is amazing is that we are on time as much as we are.
What a crock. For work i get to work on time every time. for other stuff - n one is paying me for that. e pay for punctuality.
In fact, I can't figure out how airlines lose money, much less SO MUCH money. 250 bucks round trip per times at least 100 people. That's $25,000 each flight - at the small end of the scale.
SW is OK. JetBlue - no, an airline has to be around at least five years before I will sit on one of their flights. (Though maintenance is usually my worry and if they don't do their own that would help). Maybe they have been around that long but I have never - on the West coast here - seen a JetBlue plane. But it's not like I fly that often either.
People DO bitch about flying a lot, mostly because it has almost become the expected thing to do. If you haven't had a shitty time on a flight, in an airport than you haven't really had a good vacation.
I'm continually mazed as i hear about people tell me and others of their vacations - and they start with all the bad stuff.
10 - AGUSTIN
I have gone on American airlines and I think they are starting to take away pillows becase i went to Mexico City and I asked for a pillow and they said that they didnt haved and gave me a blanket inste so I can us it as a pillow.But First class had pillows.
11 - justin
Mexicana Airlines is better than American airlines. Because MX has complementary meals,blankets,pillows,and Hedsets.So if you are traveling To Mexico go On MEXICANA if you want great service.and GREAT flight attendants. this time Im going to Washingtong DC on United Airlines so I will tell you the service!
12 - justin
I went to DCA airport and went on United Airlines and has good service specialy pillow /blankets
13 - zac
United airlines had good service.This time my flight got delayed because of "maintnes problems",for 4 hours and the only thing they gave us druring the flight was a drink.Hi to The Flight attendants of UAL627 DCA>ORD
14 - GMR
I was on an AA flight and it stank. The stews disappeared to the front of the plane and did not reappear for sometime. Everyone in the cabin was looking at each because we all knew the pilots were grabbing a little in-flight action. Never mind that we were 37,000 feet in the air or that there are safety issues regarding this type of behavior. Sky screwing between crews should be during hotel layovers or on their own free time, not ours. Not to mention that on my return flight the pilots sat and oogled every woman at the gate. It was so obvious it was disgusting. I think some of these guys must be very lonely and not too involved with women. Most men who really know women know how to handle the lookover without being offensive. This was just gross and obvious.
As for the pillows that decision doesn't surprise me. The more cutbacks the more money goes to the CEO. I read that Don Carty went out in a bad light; I am wondering what light Arpey will have when he makes his exit. Someone is not doing a very good job running this airline. I think they are going down in airline history as an international failure and the biggest ho house in Texas.