American Airlines to charge for front-row seats



American Airlines to start charging $19-$39 for seats in the first few rows of coach cabin 
Samantha Bomkamp, AP Airlines Writer, On Wednesday August 18, 2010, 3:56 pm EDT


NEW YORK (AP) -- American Airlines has found another fee.


The Fort Worth, Texas, airline said Wednesday it's now charging between $19 and $39 for "Express Seats" -- those spots in the first few rows of coach that include bulkhead seats.
American said the price of the seats includes getting on the plane in the first "general boarding" group of passengers. The seats that will cost extra are in the first two or three rows of the coach cabin, depending on the size of the plane.


Anne Banas, executive editor of SmarterTravel.com, thinks passengers will see more packaged fees like this in the future -- where benefits like free standby or boarding perks are included.

The carrier, which is operated by parent AMR Corp., is following in the footsteps of several other airlines who already charge for special seats. UAL Corp.'s United Airlines, Continental Airlines, US Airways, JetBlue, Frontier, Spirit and AirTran all have some seats that cost extra.

The American seats don't give passengers much extra for their money, said Steven Hall of CompareAirlineFees.com. Most of the other airlines' premium seats offer more legroom. But it is a benefit for passengers to be among the first to board the plane, he added.

The seats on American can only be bought at airport kiosks between 24 hours to 50 minutes before the flight for travel within the U.S.

American, the country's second-largest airline behind Delta Air Lines, still provides its elite frequent fliers those seats for no extra charge. American also charges fees for checked bags, priority boarding, booking on the phone or in person, "sleep sets," unaccompanied minors and pets.


On Tuesday, AirTran raised its fee for the first checked bag by $5 to $20 for travel starting in September. The cost is now on par with bigger airlines.

U.S. airlines collected about $1.9 billion from fees in the first quarter, the most recent period for which data is available from the Transportation Department. American's share of that was $261.1 million.


AP Airlines Writer David Koenig in Dallas contributed to this report.

Flight attendants: Bartenders or bad cops?



Hard-working airline crews juggling conflicting responsibilities
updated 8/17/2010 9:48:58 AM ET

Morris MacMatzen / Reuters

Given the agitation among both paying customers and the uniformed personnel, should the airlines formally and forcefully reaffirm the authority of flight attendants?By Bill Briggs 

Steven Slater’s intercom-cussing, double-fisted slide into resignation — has launched a fresh examination of the two-faced persona all flight attendants are asked to master: grinning snack server one moment, frowning rules enforcer the next.

From bartender to bad cop in a snap.

In an era of “current threat levels,” and within a tense flying environment that gives new meaning to “cabin pressure," is it smart to ask airline crews to juggle such outwardly conflicting responsibilities?


Flight attendants have recently demanded and won heftier federal fines for unruly customers, and have been officially designated “first responders” — someone certified to provide pre-hospital care in a medical emergency — by the Department of Homeland Security.

Yet they are earning less and sleeping less, harder-worked and higher-stressed — all while tending to a seemingly rising number of passengers who board toting an edgy “sense of entitlement,” according to associations representing both U.S. airlines and flight attendants.
While the trade groups carefully veer around the central question — does fluffing pillows and dishing pretzels erode a cabin crews’ vital onboard authority — one former flight attendant believes that’s precisely the psychology taking root in the minds of some fliers.

“Yes, in a way, the service that people see day in and day out does make people forget and it does undermine the ... responsibility that the crew members have for the safety and well being of the passengers,” said Carolyn Paddock, a Delta Air Lines flight attendant for 17 years.

.“At times, it is difficult to balance being helpful and a good host, and then having to police people,” added Paddock, who left Delta about three years ago, launching InFlightInsider.com, a website offering tips on traveling smart and stylishly.

But as flight attendants shove massive snack carts through the aisles, they offer passengers just a tiny glimpse of jobs that have gained deep complexity since Sept. 11 — jobs that pay an average of $35,000 a year, according to Corey Caldwell, spokeswoman for Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, a labor union representing more than 50,000 flight attendants at 22 airlines. "However," Caldwell noted, "most newly hired flight attendants and those who have only been at their carrier for just a few short years often make less than $20,000 a year."

“What [travelers] never see, and what they’re not supposed to see,” Paddock said, “are the inner workings of what it takes to make a flight safe, secure, and work well.”

So what happens behind the curtain? “In the interest of your safety, I cannot reveal what goes on,” Paddock said. “But trust me when I tell you that there is more that meets the eye ... What I can say is the crew is making assessments. Who are the passengers most likely to help in an emergency? Who is acting or looks suspicious? Who looks unwell? Are they unwell enough to fly? Who is sitting next to that little unaccompanied minor and is she OK sitting next to that passenger? ... At times, being underestimated works to the crew's advantage.”

That “underestimation” — or, put bluntly, lack of respect — also reflects what flight crews see on the clock and off, at their hotels, at the mall, on the freeway, or in their neighborhood grocery store: a self-involved, me-first mentality, said David Castelveter, vice president of communications at the Air Transport Association of America. (The ATA is the nation’s oldest and largest airline trade group.)

“More than ever before, there’s a sense of entitlement in society and that’s what creates the challenges for these flight crew members,” Castelveter said. “At the end of day, we’re in the customer service business and the old adage ‘the customer is always right’ is still the norm. But we have to find that balance between the customer being right and [a flier who] does something that creates a potential hazard or inconvenience for another passenger.”

Msnbc.com contacted three domestic airlines to discuss the state of flight attendant authority. Southwest spokesperson Paul Flanigan said he would not discuss whether the Slater incident indicated that U.S. airlines, in general, needed to re-examine or address the command or clout held by flight attendants inside the cabin. "We, to date, have declined all media inquiries regarding the JetBlue incident," he said, and referred questions to ATA. United and JetBlue, meanwhile, did not respond to interview requests on the topic.

“It’s absolutely a rising factor,” said Beth Blair, a Southwest Airlines flight attendant until 2004 and now a travel writer whose job has put her in the sky as often as three times a month. “There are the people who are always looking for anything free. For example, passengers assume they deserve a complimentary upgrade just because a seat is available or they should be granted a free drink because their flight was slightly delayed.”

When such accommodations are not met, some passengers “simply stew in their seats while others react with an outburst which may or may not make the news,” Blair added.

The worst offenders? “Frequent fliers,” Blair said. They are “most likely to break safety rules such as cell phone use or not paying attention to safety briefings.”

Amid these ill-mannered trends — and following Slater’s famous meltdown last week (which may or may not have been sparked by bad passenger behavior) — has the time come for airlines to take pre-emptive action? Must they formally remind passengers of who is in charge in the cabin, and that it’s a federal crime, now punishable by a $25,000 fine, to disobey or interfere with flight attendants?

That question comes with two critical caveats. First, due to post-9/11 union concessions that helped keep airlines in business, flight attendants are paid about 30 percent less than they were before the attacks and they are working about 40 percent more. Fatigue and stress among flight crews are both high, industry experts acknowledge. Couple that with the anxieties many passengers are carrying: strenuous security checks, fewer flight options, jam-packed planes and general worries about terrorism.

“I’m not sure I would say [they must take] official steps,” said Caldwell of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA. “On a whole, the traveling public understands the role of flight attendants. [But] it certainly doesn’t hurt to remind them again — that flight attendants are certified safety professionals who are required to enforce federal aviation regulations.”

"Remember, their primary responsibility is to ensure the safety of the traveling public," ATA's Castelveter said. "If any passenger is interfering with the duties of the flight crew member, it's a federal crime."

Caldwell concedes, however, that she can envision a day when the service slice of the flight crews’ job is substantially reduced and attendants ride purely to keep the peace and enforce the safety rules.

“That’s definitely a possibility,” Caldwell said. “If you look at the current business model that airline management has sort of set up, yeah that could be a possibility.”

Although, she added, flight attendants always will remain the face of the airlines and, as such, “there will always be just that little customer service angle. It’s the flight attendants who are in the steel tube at 40,000 feet with the passengers.”

Perhaps some airlines ultimately will find the need to designate certain flight crew members as “hospitality” attendants and others as “safety monitors” — both squads with clearly separate duties, perhaps even wearing different attire. That’s unlikely to occur until the economy rebounds, said flight-attendant-turned-writer Blair.

“I think an onboard safety team is a great idea because it does give the crew members a specific role,” Blair said. “I’m not sure, though, if the airlines will see it as practical or financially feasible.”

Still, fliers already recognize that the “service” elements offered by flight crews are dwindling as pillows and blankets become scarce, and as beverages and snacks are cut or switched to pay-only, pre-boxed meals.

“Other flight attendants, pilots and I used to joke that one day vending machines would replace the galley,” Blair said. “It seems like we may be heading in that direction.”

© 2010 msnbc.com Reprints

Airlines start lining up for Africa take-off



By Jeremy Lemer


Published: August 17 2010 18:14
Last updated: August 17 2010 18:14

The football World Cup is over, the vuvuzelas have been consigned to the dustbin and fans have turned their attention from Africa to Brazil, host of the 2014 contest. But for one group at least, the continent remains in sharp focus: international airlines.


According to the International Air Transport Association, airlines increased the amount of flying capacity to and from Africa by 8.6 per cent over the year to the end of June compared to 2009, more than any other region except for the Middle East.

While US and European airlines have been cautiously adding capacity to Africa for years, the drive has picked up in intensity in recent months, leading industry executives to talk of a new “scramble for Africa” as airlines position themselves for the future.


Executives point to high growth levels that suggest an increasing need, and ability to pay, for travel by air. Africa’s real gross domestic product was $1,600bn in 2008, having grown 4.9 per cent per year since 2000 – more than twice as fast as in the 1980s and 1990s.


Much of that can be put down to Africa’s large mineral reserves – which have become a focus of fast-growing Asian economies. Traffic between Asia-Pacific and Africa is forecast to grow at 9 per cent per year over the next decade according to some estimates.


US and European airlines are also boosting their connections to resource-rich regions. In June, Delta Air Lines started a service between Atlanta and Accra and aims to add services to Liberia, Angola, Equatorial Guinea, and Kenya in the near future.


Lufthansa, Europe’s biggest airline group and a key provider to Africa, has ramped up its connections, adding two new services in west and central Africa and expanding several more since 2008. The group now has 222 flights a week to 33 destinations in Africa.


A recent report by McKinsey Global Institute, entitled Lions On The Move, suggests that the economic foundations of Africa’s recent success are broader and therefore will have more “staying power”.


Natural resources accounted directly for only a quarter of Africa’s GDP growth over the decade while “the rest came from other sectors, including wholesale and retail, trade and transportation, telecoms and manufacturing”.


Indeed, Airbus, the European aircraft maker, predicts the recent aviation ramp-up will be sustained. Over the next 20 years the amount of filled capacity on flights between Africa and other parts of the world will grow at 5.6 per cent each year, albeit from a low base.


“There is a lot of money in Africa right now,” says Glen Hauenstein, head of network planning at Delta Air Lines, the world’s largest airline by revenues. “GDP is small in absolute terms but it is rapidly expanding as political stability spreads.”


In this newly competitive environment, US airlines are playing catch-up. While European carriers have offered direct services for decades, non-stop flights from North America to Africa have traditionally been limited, and slumped after the industry recession following the September 2001 terrorist attacks.

Mr Hauenstein says Delta began experimenting with flights to Africa in 2006 with a connection between its hub in Atlanta, Georgia, and the tourist destination of Johannesburg in South Africa, via Dakar, Senegal.


The success of that route has led Delta to try others, with an emphasis on west and sub-Saharan Africa where avoiding European connections can save US travellers time.


Part of the problem was aircraft technology, says Greg Hart, vice-president of network strategy at Continental.


Until the Boeing 777 was developed in the mid-1990s, many destinations in Africa were too far from the US for direct connections, and even then the 777 was too big to make some routes profitable. With the arrival of Boeing’s much delayed 787, due around the turn of the year, Mr Hart says that many airlines will for the first time have the right aircraft for the job. Continental plans to connect the energy capitals of Houston and Lagos with a service starting in November 2011. Still, considerable obstacles must be overcome.


According to a 2009 World Bank report on Africa’s aviation infrastructure, while the continent is fairly well served by airports, lack of taxi-ways and terminal facilities and “inadequate” air traffic control systems are limiting capacity growth.


Safety is another concern. Last year, Africa had the worst record of any region, according to Iata statistics. While most problems relate to aircraft operated by local airlines, several reports have blamed Africa’s weak regulatory oversight, which raises wider issues.

In response, airlines have worked closely with government authorities and spent time and money to upgrade local infrastructure for their new services. Continental will help to upgrade the electrical facilities in Lagos airport to receive the Boeing 787.

In spite of those hurdles the airlines remain confident that the efforts will pay off. “The 787 is going to be the pride of our fleet and we are going to put it into Africa. That speaks volumes of our level of interest,” says Continental’s Mr Hart.


Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010. You may share using our article tools.

American Airlines in talks to revamp JFK terminal
Published: August 12, 2010 10:59 AM
Modified: August 12, 2010 12:03 PM


Carrier seeks to bring alliance partners British Airways and Iberia under one roof to counter Delta's $1.2 billion renovation at Kennedy.

 (Bloomberg) -- American Airlines is in advanced talks to bring alliance partners British Airways Plc and Iberia Lineas Aereas de Espana SA into one “premiere” terminal at New York's Kennedy airport to bolster overseas flights.
“It will require expansion and will be significant in terms of investment,” Art Torno, vice president overseeing American's New York operations, said in an interview. “When we finish that terminal, it will be a watermark for everyone to shoot for.”

Putting the Oneworld alliance members under one roof would help AMR Corp.'s American counter Delta Air Lines Inc., which unveiled plans yesterday for a $1.2 billion renovation at John F. Kennedy International Airport. American and Delta are vying for passengers in New York, the biggest U.S. aviation market.

The cost and scope of the possible changes at American's Terminal 8 are still under discussion with British Airways, Spain's Iberia and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which oversees JFK, Mr. Torno said.
Any investment would be in addition to the $1.3 billion that Fort Worth, Texas-based American spent on a terminal renovation completed in 2007, he said. The 1-million-square-foot facility is American's primary international gateway in the eastern U.S.

American, British Airways and Iberia couldn't begin talks on a single terminal until after July 20, when they won final U.S. approval to jointly set prices, sell tickets and schedule trans-Atlantic flights. That venture doesn't cover other Oneworld members, which include Japan Airlines Corp.
“New York is really a battle for market share,” Mr. Torno said. “I don't think anyone can own New York. Our reaction is a competitive response to protect our interests here in the world's largest aviation market.”

American is adding 15 new destinations from New York this year and 33 additional flights. It will announce more schedule changes involving its alliance partners for the summer of 2011, he said.

Delta will renovate Kennedy's Terminal 4, which is used by foreign carriers, and link it with Terminal 2, where the Atlanta-based airline has flights.
The 1960s-era Terminal 3, formerly used by Pan American World Airways, will be demolished to make room for parking jets. Delta will begin work next month and finish by mid-2013. JFK is a Delta hub for overseas flights and became a focus for expansion after the airline's 2007 bankruptcy exit.

American also is remodeling Concourse D and Concourse C at New York's LaGuardia airport, where its domestic flights are based. The carrier, which is investing about $30 million in the projects, is considering whether to connect the two terminals or build an additional Admirals' Club lounge, Mr. Torno said.

Filed Under : American Airlines, Commercial Real Estate, Delta Air Lines, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey