What's wrong with American Airlines, part 2/x

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Air Show

Episode: What's Wrong with American Airlines – Part 2/x

Date: September 26, 2025
Hosts: Jon Ostrower, Brett Snyder, Brian Sumers

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Overview

In the second installment of their series examining American Airlines, Jon Ostrower, Brett Snyder, and Brian Sumers dive into the airline’s persistent struggles—and recent improvements—in the realms of brand and product. Moving beyond the fleet and network topics of episode one, the trio explore why American’s image, customer experience, and internal identity lag behind competitors like Delta and United, despite some positive momentum.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Brand vs. Product: Distinct But Intertwined

• Brand is Intangible:

  • Jon: "You really can't find the type of intangible you're looking for in an Excel spreadsheet. That's what brand is. It is the thing you kind of feel rather than can put a number to." [02:35]
  • Brett: Acknowledges the importance of brand, but wants tangible numbers and revenue impact, which is hard to measure compared to operational changes like fleet or network [01:57].

• Product Is the Experience:

  • Brian: Notes contemporaneous product improvements at American, but questions whether these changes convey a coherent brand identity that resonates with customers [03:17].

Notable Quote:

“Airline seat is kind of a commodity... So the question is, how do you get people to pay more money for your seat, which is still mostly the same as their seat. You invest in brand, you make people think your chair is better than their chair.”
– Brian Sumers [03:43]

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2. The Power—and Limits—of Brand Campaigns

• American’s Highs and Lows:
  • Jon and Brett recall how American benefited from United’s "summer of hell" in 2000, gaining a lasting reputation in Chicago [05:16].
  • Jon reminiscences about American’s "Up in the Air" era with George Clooney as a brand high point, giving the airline a premium glow [04:09].
  • Brand mishaps: The “World’s Greatest Flyers” campaign backfired, being interpreted as scolding passengers rather than inspiring them [16:42].

Notable Quotes:

“It took a lot of heat for effectively telling people that if they would just be better, they too could be a great flyer and then the experience would be better… It was just a miscalculation by an ad team that didn’t think things through…”
– Brett Snyder [17:15]

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3. Competitor Comparisons: Lessons from Delta and United

• Delta's Culture of Branding:

  • Brian praises Delta for a meticulous and expensive approach to branding—advertising with Viola Davis, culturally diverse ads, premium seat details, elaborately branded bulkheads, and a design agency tasked with positioning Delta as a "cultural pioneer" [09:15].
  • Jon, amused and skeptical: "That is cringe, actually, as the kids say. I mean, look, that is a double mega stuff of marketing." [10:55]

• Consistency and Authenticity:

  • Delta and United are credited for cohesive branding strategies and continuous, if incremental, investment in premium experiences—at all levels, not just business class [18:16], [26:59].
  • American’s branding is described as “disjointed,” with sporadic investments and lack of a unified identity.

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4. American’s Centennial Campaign: "Forever Forward"

• Backwards-Looking, Not Forward:
  • Brett critiques the campaign: “The campaign so far has been entirely backwards... The messaging here is pretty much looking one way so far and that’s not going to help the brand.” [15:31]
  • The centennial video relies heavily on nostalgia, referencing "firsts" from decades past but unable to name any meaningful modern innovations or positive industry-shaping moves in the 21st century [14:38].

Memorable Exchange:

Brian: "Does more room throughout coach not count?"
Jon: "First with bag fees?"
Brett: "First in bag fees. Oh God."
– [15:33]

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5. Brand Lessons from Livery Changes and Product Upgrades

• Disjointed Decision-Making:

  • Post-merger, Doug Parker let employees choose the tail design, creating potential brand confusion—“From a branding and design part, it was insane... you need a cohesive look.” [18:31]
  • JetBlue’s recent livery update to a struggling airline is cited as a cautionary tale: “You don't just get to change the livery, you gotta change everything.” [20:25]

• Positive Direction:

  • American is reversing some penny-pinching practices: restoring headphones on international flights, investing in new lounges, upgrading coffee, introducing premium-heavy aircraft, new amenity kits, and even better champagne [21:47].
  • However, these changes are often not part of a well-coordinated strategy, resulting in missed opportunities to move the revenue and reputation needle compared to United’s more holistic premium service approach [24:38].

Notable Quote:

“You can't just change the brand, you can't just advertise. You have to change the airline with it or people won’t buy what you’re selling.”
– Brian Sumers [20:25]

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6. Operational Challenges and the Internal Brand

• Operational Reliability as Table Stakes:
  • Having a branded, premium product is moot if the operation isn’t reliable: “Nothing will wreck your brand quicker than not getting someone to their destination…” – Jon Ostrower [23:27]
  • Summer operational troubles highlight issues with exhausted frontline employees and the difficulty of presenting a premium brand when basics falter [27:27].

Notable Quote:

"The frontline employees are exhausted... that's your brand in action."
– Jon Ostrower [27:27]

• Leadership Void:
  • Unlike Delta and United, who had “caretaker CEOs” like Jerry Grinstein and Oscar Munoz to heal internal rifts and rejuvenate culture, American hasn’t yet found a leader to foster an internal brand renaissance [29:52].

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7. Listener Feedback and Final Takeaway

• Customer Disconnect:
  • Jon reads feedback from a top-tier frequent flyer who, after achieving Executive Platinum, received a generic, impersonal email from American—no real gratitude for loyalty, exposing a tone-deaf approach to customer appreciation [30:09].

Notable Quote:

"What was missing? It was a simple thank you for flying with us… Tone deaf is how they described it. That’s the brand. This airline can be great, but they have to start listening."
– Jon Ostrower [30:09]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:57] – Brand vs Product discussion kick-off
• [04:09] – Reflection on “Up in the Air” and American’s past brand highs
• [09:15] – How Delta approaches branding differently
• [14:38] – Critique of American’s “Forever Forward” centennial campaign
• [18:31] – Branding errors post-merger and lessons from livery changes
• [21:47] – Recent product improvements at American
• [23:27] – The link between operational reliability and brand trust
• [27:27] – The impact of frontline employee exhaustion on brand
• [30:09] – Listener feedback highlights customer care shortfall

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Tone, Style & Memorable Moments

• Tone: Witty, sometimes irreverent, but always insightful; hosts routinely challenge each other but share mutual respect for the complexities of airline management.
• Memorable Banter:
  • On campaign taglines: “Forever Forward... Maybe that would have been a better tagline for this actually, because... the campaign so far has been entirely backwards...” [14:49]
  • On branding lags: “I just go back to the word disjointed again... it's doing some specific projects in specific cases... it forgot to check half the boxes.” – Brett Snyder [26:26]

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Conclusion

The hosts agree: American Airlines’ incremental product improvements are welcome, but until the brand finds focus internally and externally, and until operational reliability is restored, it risks permanent mediocrity. Future episodes will explore American’s leadership—look out for a discussion on what kind of CEO (maybe from Southwest?) could revive both the internal and external brand.

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For listeners: If you care about airline strategy, branding, and culture, this episode delivers sharp insights and a healthy dose of industry humor. The next episode promises an equally frank dive into American’s leadership and culture—don't miss it!

Transcript

[A]

I'm Jon Ostrower, editor in chief of the Air Current.

[B]

I'm Brett Snyder, author of Cranky Flyer.

[C]

And I'm Brian Summers. I write the Airline Observer. You're listening to the Air show, the podcast where we talk about what goes on in the business of the sky. I know you've all been waiting for this. We're back with the second installment of what's Wrong with American Airlines. Today we will shift from fleet and network to two topics that I prefer, brand and product. I think, guys, American struggles with both of these. But I must be honest and say the airline is definitely improving its product and I think it deserves some credit. Plus, American has a new campaign to celebrate its centennial next year.

[B]

Okay, I don't think our listeners had that on their bingo card that we were going to start this on a positive note. But sure, I just want to thank.

[A]

All of you, our listeners, for the feedback from the first episode and really, the overwhelming majority of you at least agree with the premise, including a large number of current and former American Airlines employees and yes, big spending customers.

[C]

Yeah, and don't forget those competitors, John.

[A]

They definitely weighed in. Also, there was, unsurprisingly, a few head nods from the from the opposing peanut gallery.

[C]

Well, I am excited that you two gentlemen, Brett and John, allowed us to do this episode because I know that fleet and which we talked about in episode one are the backbone of every airline. You cannot have a successful airline without them. But I think you guys know, and probably the listeners know too, that I think airlines sometimes under invest in their product and brand and those two things go together. And I have historically, or at least in the recent past put American in that category. But what about you? Do you think brand and product are equally important issues for American?

[B]

So you may like this better, but I do not, as most people will be unsurprised to hear. I like to live in numbers and statistics. Right. At least when I'm talking publicly. I'll talk to you guys off the record about anything. But while we can easily point at the costs of doing these things, we can't point to the revenue benefit in a directly tangible way. So it takes a.

Pardon me for co opting former CEO Doug Parker's old mantra from right after the merger. It takes a leap of faith.

[A]

You know, just as here in the scripts is cringe. But in all seriousness, you really can't find the type of intangible you're looking for in an Excel spreadsheet. That's what brand is. It is the thing you kind of feel rather than can put a number to.

[B]

Yeah. And look, while I don't like it better because I can't put it in the spreadsheet, I do think it's important. I don't know that I agree. It's as important as network and fleet. We can have this debate forever. But then again, I tend to think that none of this is important as a topic that we're going to cover in a future episode, which is leadership.

[C]

We're going to be doing this for the rest of our lives, these episodes, aren't we?

[A]

We have to do a turnaround episode too.

[C]

All right, I will shout it from the mountaintops. These are consumer facing companies and brand matters a lot. I know that there are some executives in this industry who have spent a long time trying to tell us that it's no longer the commodity business that it was two decades ago. And I think that there's a lot of truth to that. Airlines do offer differentiated products, but let's be honest, an airline seat is kind of a commodity. Like, I really like those airline executives that call it a chair instead of a seat. So the question is, how do you get people to pay more money for your seat, which is still mostly the same as their seat. You invest in brand, you make people think your chair is better than their chair.

[A]

I think we have to start this conversation talking about Ryan Bingham. For those of you listening who know who I'm talking about, bravo. For the rest of you, Ryan Bingham was George Clooney's character in up in the Air, the 2009 feature length commercial for American Airlines. The original title was actually how I learned to stop worrying and just enjoy being concierge key. But look, okay, this movie came along with a lot of warm and fuzzies for the carrier and the brand. I was a mere 26th of the time and my apartment was just as neglected as the main character as I was traveling so much. But I remember at the time wanting to crisscross the US in an MD80. Ryan Bingham was an incredible ambassador for American. I'm not sure it was the high watermark for American, but it was an excellent product placement, really on par with FedEx, Tom Hanks and Castaway. But I think it really encapsulated what they were trying to show the world as far as what it could be for a premium experience and what air transport in the US really could be.

[B]

As opposed to Home Alone, where American promise to lose your kid twice.

[A]

Bookends, man, bookends.

[B]

But I get what you're saying it was definitely a brand boost, even if it wasn't easy to measure what the boost was. To me, the high water mark for American. I kind of recognize this when I joined United in 0405. Anyone who flew back in the summer 2000 on United, anyone here probably wincing at the mere reference to that summer of hell? That's when United's pilots decided to slow down the airline to a crawl over a contract dispute. The entire summer was a just disaster from an operational perspective, and United became so unreliable that it lost a lot of traffic. And here I was four years later coming into United in 2004, and one of our tasks was to reverse the losses from that summer four years earlier in Chicago. United's operation had recovered long ago from that, but the brand in Chicago was still tainted. And American had been benefited from that from 2000. And that's when I learned firsthand the importance of tending to your brand.

[C]

Yes, Brett. And do you remember what helped United get out of that funk? The single greatest airline ad campaign of the modern era. Do you remember those animated ads of travelers flying United to special occasions? Maybe the guy with the rose going to visit his mom with Rhapsody in Blue playing in the background?

[B]

I do remember that, and I hated it. As a marketing employee, I was so pissed off that the ad team was more concerned about winning Emmys than actually fixing the business. But I digress.

[C]

Is there a chance, Brett, that you're actually using this podcast to try to get a job at American Airlines?

[B]

No, sir, because you're starting to think like that. Hold on. This was when I was a punk at a business school, sir. 20 plus years ago. Anyway, no, I would say my stance has softened to some extent on this, but when you're trying to get everyone to row in the same direction and the advertising team does not care what you want and just does their own thing, it is grading, let me just tell you that.

[C]

All right, I'll take it from you. But I still think that this stuff matters because again, the actual differences between these airlines, it's just not that big. So you guys probably get this too. But a few times a year, I'll get an email from somebody who flies American and they say, Brian, you have it all wrong because the in flight experience on American, especially domestically, is about the same as Delta or United. And actually they don't expect this. But I agree with them. We talked before. You know how American has too few premium seats, that is an issue. But the seats themselves, like, they're, they're fine. The food and Premium cabins is pretty good too. The Admirals Club is not that much different from the United Club or the Sky Club. And then coach, you know, it's pretty much the same across the board. So why do some airlines get more revenue? Some of that, again, I think it's about brand. And I am not sure anymore what American's brand stands for.

[B]

Hold on though, because you're forgetting about those fancy seatback screens which American long ago mostly took out of their narrow body fleet.

[C]

That's product, it's not brand.

[B]

You're saying the product is the same and I'm saying it's not because similar. Well, okay, but those screens make a difference. I have finally been convinced. I've struggled over this for years. And you know, American just has fewer premium seats on board. So we talked about the fleet the last time and I know you don't want to revisit that. But look at a basic domestic 737, 800. American has 16 first class, 24 main cabin extra and then 132 in coach. Delta has 16 first class, but 36 Delta comfort and 108 in regular coach. There are some very real differences here that directly lead to lower revenue on the product side. So we can't overlook that.

[C]

Yeah, Brett, you're right. We're just having two different conversations. I think. I mean, it is a given that the Lopez at American are not designed for the, the modern trends that travelers want. But Lopez I think are different than brand. And I want to go back to Delta for a second because Delta's awesome at this. Delta is a better brand than any other airline for some very real reasons. People at Delta are taking this seriously. And it is expensive. So let me go through some examples. Right, you've got your brand advertising featuring Viola Davis. Do you think that voice is cheap? You have print and digital ads featuring all kinds of people. This is done on purpose. It is not a coincidence that Delta features a lot of same sex couples in its ads. If you look at the seats themselves, not the number of the seats, because that's a different topic. You're gonna find a widget on many of the seats. You're gonna find special stitching on premium seats that shows you this is where you wanna sit in the future, you're going to see huge branding on bulkheads and other monuments. And you look at something like for this 100th anniversary that Delta is now celebrating, they have engaged a design agency on a full brand redesigned. Let me read you what the agency wants to do. They want to signal Delta's role as a cultural pioneer shaping the future of how we live, connect and grow through the transformative power of travel. How about that, huh?

[A]

That is cringe, actually, as the kids say. I mean, look, that is a, that is a double mega stuff of marketing.

Bull. I mean they won the rfp, so congratulations. But look, I mean the reality is that I think that is very much indicative of, of.

Delta's very confident self image.

[C]

And you don't think that has anything to do with the margin gap?

[A]

How Delta has shaped how I live as a pioneer.

[C]

One airline is a commodity and the other airline shapes how people live.

[B]

To be fair, if Delta wasn't so interested in Seattle, you know, I think they have shaped how you live.

[A]

There's a sky Club Q joke here somewhere, but just keep going.

[B]

Look, Brian, I just want to point out, I don't think that we are arguing two different things. I was just responding before to your point that the products are basically the same. I think there are some notable differences, but that doesn't mean that brand doesn't matter. And we all need to talk more about brand and they need to do a better job with brand. I wish there would be less of this corporate speak ridiculousness when it comes to some of these things, but you know, whatever, so be it. So look, let's take a break because American will be joining the 100 year party next year. And, and let's talk about why that's not off to a great start. After the break.

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[C]

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[B]

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[B]

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[A]

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[B]

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[C]

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[A]

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[B]

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And we're back. So American has just recently released its centennial kickoff and it is going, Wait for it, guys. Forever forward.

[C]

That's a capital F, by the way.

[B]

I'm so sorry, I did not say capital F forever forward.

[A]

You clearly never got to see an MD80 do a power pushback at the gate.

[B]

Well, that was temporarily backwards, I believe, and actually not permanent, intermittently backwards. Maybe that would have been a better tagline for this actually, because the funny thing about this is that the campaign so far has been entirely backwards, which they released a little teaser video thing that to me shows some of the confusion that I think goes on at that airline with brand. The first part of CEO Robert Isom's quote in the press release they put out is American is proud to be an airline known for its legacy of firsts. And yes, American has had some remarkable firsts, but name one that it's had this century. I mean, a positive one. I'll wait.

[C]

Does more room throughout coach not count.

[A]

First with bag fees?

[B]

First in bag fees. Oh God. All right, listen, the point is none of these things are being pointed out in the video. The video resorts to black and white images of the first lounge, not to mention a spectacularly permed woman from the 80s showing off the first loyalty program. I get that the 100 years supposed to look back and forward, but the messaging here is pretty much looking one way so far and that's not going to help the brand.

[C]

Yeah, I think we joked about this in an earlier episode, but after the US Airways merger, American actually had some pretty Good. I thought brand advertising and brand advertising, as people probably know, this kind of advertising that makes you feel a certain way about a company, they're not asking you to buy anything. United has it now with Good leads the way. So 2016, American briefly had this campaign. These are the world's greatest flyers, and the world's greatest flyers fly American. But not for me. But there was a viral backlash against it.

[A]

Do you guys remember why there is a viral backlash against it?

[B]

Yeah. Okay, first, I just want to say that I think Good leads the way is dumb. Just like Good Goes around was when Delta tried that one years ago, and now I have that stupid song stuck in my head. Happiness runs in a circular motion. Everyone remember that. All right. At least I found a reason to serenade you again, and I think our listeners will be pleased. But don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that the idea of creating a vibe is dumb. I just didn't like those implementations for American. It created the wrong vibe. It took a lot of heat for effectively telling people that if they would just be better, they too could be a great flyer and then the experience would be better. It was like shifting the burden to the traveler to make things better. I don't. I don't think it was on purpose, which is maybe even worse than if it was. It was just a miscalculation by an ad team that didn't think things through, which. Getting a lot of similar thoughts here as we talk about these things. Anyone else?

[A]

But it's remarkable American never tried again. Good Goes around may have flopped to Delta, but it didn't ultimately stop that airline from moving on. How many people still remember American as something special in the air or the on time machine?

[B]

I do. I do.

[A]

Those are very successful brand campaigns that still echo today, by the way. I remember more legroom throughout Coach. It was a massive disaster from a financial perspective, but it was a great campaign. It really was. No, genuine, genuinely was. So when the World's Greatest Flyers flopped for a few weeks, it's like, honestly, genuinely strange that nothing ever replaced it. I mean, maybe this centennial will turn to a broader campaign, but so far it's, you know, just nostalgia that feels disconnected from the tagline.

[C]

Yeah. And I think this airline has been disjointed with the way that it has seen branding for a long time. So I go back to 2013, right after the merger. You remember that Doug Parker, to his credit, very much cared about employee morale. But to show employees how much he cared about their vision of nostalgia, he Let them vote on how the airline should paint its tail, but just the tail. So the employees had these two choices. They could have the full flag livery that we see today that American was just putting on its airplanes, or it could have today's livery on the fuselage, but the old AA logo on the tail, that was kind of a nice idea, maybe for the romantics who are listening, but from a branding and design part, it was insane. Have you guys ever talked to anybody who does design for a living about this? The prior management at American who really cared about how things looked, they had spent a fortune on that rebrand. And Parker was like, you can have one and the other at the same time. You cannot do that. You need a cohesive look.

[B]

I agree, that was completely insane. And this comes from someone who still doesn't like the current livery. That attempt, though, it was clearly not even remotely thought through. But you give props to prior management, Brian. I do not think that they were well equipped to actually succeed with this airline either. Just in a different way. But look, this is in the past and we need to be looking forever forward.

[C]

Yeah, that was a long time ago. Pre2013. I have heard that that management team was perhaps too focused on the brand and the look of the airline. I think that that was probably.

And this goes to what we're talking about today, you can't just change the brand, you can't just advertise. You have to change the airline with it or people won't buy what you're selling. So fun fact, in my world, I don't think many people were paying attention in 2023 when JetBlue introduced a new livery because that airline doesn't command attention like it once did. But JetBlue actually made a pretty big faux pas a couple years ago when it introduced that new BL livery to what then was an extremely broken airline. You don't just get to change delivery, you gotta change everything. But here is the somewhat good news, guys. American is making changes. The product is getting better. The airline is making investments and reversing stupid decisions like taking away headphones on international flights before landing. I think it's probably time for the airline to take it one step further.

[A]

I'm not going to beat a dead horse here, or maybe I am, but like there actually is a debt cycle of over then underinvestment that is real at this airline. And when you're in a big debt hole, you can't invest in the way you want to because so much of your capital is going to debt service. Instead of continuous product improvement that ultimately compounds on itself.

[C]

Yeah, perhaps that's true, John. And this is not a financial podcast, of course, but I do remember what Doug Parker used to say about the debt burden. He said that it was okay because American was going to pay off the debt with earnings. And right now the best way to grow earnings in the US airline industry is probably for American to grow revenue. Not to oversimplify, but you gotta spend money to make money. I do think the team at American gets that because we've seen a lot of announcements about recent improvements. So new lounges are coming. Steve Johnson, the interim chief commercial officer, said at a conference earlier this month that the airline plans to participate in what he called the arms race around lounges. We're getting new coffee soon. Amazingly, even Southwest went upscale with Peet's Coffee before American changed its not great coffee. We've got two new airplane types, the 787P with all those fancy business class suites. We've got the A321XLR. We're seeing better branding on those airplanes, just on the bulkhead walls and things like that. We're hearing rumors of maybe a refresh to the 777 200. There are new amenity kits. And of course, the news of this week, better champagne. Do you guys think this will move.

[A]

The needle on time flights? I think it was actually Robert Eisenberg himself who actually said that the world looks more colorful, food tastes better when everything runs on time.

[C]

Yes, and all of us made fun of him for that.

[A]

But he's right though. He's right though, because nothing will wreck your brand quicker than not getting someone to their destination, which cascades throughout the entire operation and culture and brand of, of what you're trying to do here.

[C]

That's fine, but, but as some people have said, and they told me, those are table stakes. I mean, you just have to run an on time airline.

[B]

Yeah, those basics, you got to do.

[C]

Stuff on top of that as well.

[B]

And they're not even doing that.

[A]

That's exactly why this is a multi part series. But also I think it's really important. Let's talk about those XLRs for a moment because there's actually a real opportunity there. But you know, broader industry dynamics are really getting in the way of that. American was one of the very first airlines to order the XLR back in 2019 with Airbus and have actually taken delivery of a couple of them so far. But guess where those aircraft are. If you guessed the Czech Republic, you would be right. They're in storage. Airbus delivered them. They have completely empty cabins at the moment and are awaiting seat certification. That's a big opportunity from the hard product perspective, especially on transcon going back and forth between LA and New York. But there is a significant certification log jam outside of American's control.

[B]

Brian? Yes, to answer your question, and I think it'll move the needle, but that's a pretty low bar to just move it. American is so far behind Delta and United it needs to push that needle hard over in the other direction and it's not going to do that. To me, the problem with this is that it doesn't feel like it's part of a truly cohesive strategy that's fully baked to cover the entire airline's go forward plan. You can look no further than Those new Boeing 787 9s you talked about, the 787 PS as they call them with the premium heavy configuration. United American announced what they were going to do on their new 787 9s at the same time. And American announced a slightly bigger suite in the first row of the cabin just because that's what geometry allows and it's more room, slightly upgraded, experience, red accents. But it still hasn't even begun charging for that. Last I checked it was just anyone could assign it whether that's an inability to execute or simply that the product isn't good enough to generate enough revenue. It's not clear to me. But either way is a problem. Meanwhile, look at what United did with theirs, which admittedly is not flying yet. So we'll see what actually happens when it is in the air. But United is thinking about this much further ahead. It's thinking about it in a similar way in that it knows there's the geometry up there, but it's making it a more premium experience in that front row from end to end throughout the entire journey. So it's going to be able to monetize that much better than American will be able to if American ever does monetize it. And it just shows how differently they're thinking about something as simple as what do we do with this extra space on an airplane.

[C]

Sounds like you're pretty skeptical. Brett.

[B]

Well, in general, but it's not that I don't like these changes. I just go back to the word disjointed again.

You know, it's doing some specific projects in specific cases. The 787 nine, I haven't flown it, but I was able to get on it. Premium economy was really nice. Business was Good coaches coach. It doesn't feel like there's a broad strategic push from the top to address the entire experience for people. It's like the airline is checking boxes based on what it sees others doing, but it forgot to check half the boxes.

[A]

Yeah, and the brand and product strategy they've employed raise the expectations at the top, but not at the bottom. And I think that to Delta and United's credit, with the baseline experience for a basic economy ticket, they've actually raised the bar at the bottom. But here's the kicker as I see it, the frontline employees are exhausted. And that comes through.

Repeatedly when you fly American, unfortunately. And that's your brand in action. Right. They're given an unreliable operation, an under maintained product, tumultuous crew scheduling, rolling, 15 minute delays, and these things are all out of their control and things that upset passengers the most. So they're put in an impossible position to represent the brand positively. Look, I hate using my own experiences as data, but I've been collecting others too. You know, it puts passenger facing staff in a justifiably terrible mood because they're left out to dry with impossible problems to fix. And look, that 787p gorgeous new cabin, really beautiful. They did a really great job with that design, but they understaffed it on the flight attendant front. So how does that set them up for success?

[C]

I think you guys are both right. You've got it here. If you're going to have a premium brand, everything needs to be premium. You can't just invest in a few things and then keep everything else cheap. Because I think that the customer, maybe not one customer, but all your customers see through that. The whole thing needs to be coordinated. And we see United doing that now little by little. Every year there's new investments just to make it a little bit better. And you know, I will tell you, these are still airlines and so even the quote to premium ones, they mess up all the time. Very complicated businesses. But you have to at least try. And American can't change its mind on the next investment that it's planned because the next two quarters, maybe they look weaker.

[B]

Yeah. And this summer the story maybe was the operation above all because it didn't go very well in any way. But American does say this summer's bad operation was a blip. It has, you know, if nothing else, tried to build a reliable operation with. Tried being the operative word here. But this brings us to, I think an important point, that the brand isn't just external. American needs an internal brand reset as well. And I think about, you know, Jerry Grinstein at Delta or Oscar Munoz at United. These were caretaker CEOs meant to heal the wounds from the past, get the employee base on board and excited and start pushing into the future. And that is not something that American has had.

[C]

That's a good segue into the next episode of this saga, which will focus on leadership. But first, I'll crack a joke. At least I think it's a joke. Maybe there's a board member at Southwest Airlines who wants that job.

[B]

Oi.

[A]

Okay, so I'm glad we put a little daylight in between the first and second installment here because it really benefited from the feedback we got from our listeners. I actually want to close with something you received from one in particular who forwarded us an email they received from an American when they made Executive Platinum status. It's the top level on the airline. It opens with congratulations on earning American Airlines Advantage Executive Platinum status. The email then goes on to outline the benefits that come with Exec plan, then ways to enhance your loyalty with more miles quote great job on earning status and keep it up. You're only 48. 604 loyalty points from unlocking your next loyalty point reward. Great job on this impressive achievement. You're among our most loyal members. So what was missing? It was a simple thank you for flying with us, an exec plat who over and over trusts American with their important travel plans. They spent a ton of time on their airplanes and yes, a ton of money with American. The listener said at the very end of the email they received a quote pithy thank you for being an Advantage member. But that's pro forma for anyone joining the program. Tone deaf is how they described it. It that's the brand. This airline can be great, but they have to start listening.

[C]

You've been listening to the Airshow. If you have suggestions or questions for us, or if you're interested in sponsoring the podcast, go to our website theairshowpodcast.com to get in touch.

[B]

The Air show podcast is produced and edited by Sarah Fay. Our theme music is by the now thrice Emmy nominated Joshua Moser. Thanks for listening and we'll be back soon.