Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Want a Seat Assignment on AA?

American Airlines announced this morning that it is adding a new, “customer-friendly” aspect to its price structure. A customer-friendly AA? Here at High Flying Bird, we look at all of AA’s actions with well-deserved skepticism and find this one particularly disingenuous.

Passengers on AA will now have a new economy fare from which to choose. To keep up with the Southwests of the industry, AA is offering an option with no seat assignment. Those passengers will board in Group 7, 10 minutes before departure, and will be welcome to take any open seat. Passengers with seat assignments who arrive late may find their seat already taken, in keeping with the current 10-minute rule. According to an American spokesman, “This gives our customers the best of both worlds, while allowing us to compete more fairly with other airlines offering deeply discounted fares.”

High Flying Bird’s take? This is just another way for American to charge passengers for services that used to be included with the price of a ticket, such as meals, snacks and headphones, and now seat assignments. What do other High Flying Birds think? Will you pay what will now be extra for a seat assignment? Will this move by AA ultimately be seen as genius, or a foolish mistake?

-- The Commish

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

All I see is yet another opportunity for AA flight attendant bitchiness. If we thought they were rude when we were assigned seat passengers, just imagine how they'll look at the "cattle car" folk.

AA is scrambling. This stinks of desperation (not unlike a cattle car).