Computer generated image of an American Airlines Boeing 737, 787 Dreamliner and 777. It is fun to see the 787 in metallic finish, but the composite body would not make that possible. Image via Boeing.
I spent a nice chunk yesterday evening trying to get through all the recent information on American Airline’s record breaking order of aircraft. My first big question is why would an airline that lost $286million during 2nd quarter 2011, look to spend so much money on new aircraft? Airlines that lose money is not a new concept, but at a time when most airlines are raking in profits, American is still stuck in the red. The airline obviously needs to do something drastic and they are hoping that updating their fleet will achieve their goal. It seems like this is the correct direction, but there is much more than new planes needed to survive.
In case you missed it, American Airlines announced the purchase of 460 new aircraft, which is the largest single order in history. This will include 260 Airbus and 200 Boeing aircraft. I assume that the folks at American have run the numbers and found that with the expected cost of fuel and maintenance of older aircraft, it makes more sense, long term, to operate newer aircraft. It is likely that American had a huge advantage working Boeing and Airbus against each other to achieve the best pricing and they have beat Delta Air Lines and United Airlines to the punch of updating their fleet. In fact, American expects to have the newest fleet of all major US carriers in just five years, which is an impressive feat knowing that their average age of aircraft today is about 15 years.
According to Boeing’s press release, American was offered a 737 re-engine option that has not yet been approved by the board of directors. “In addition, American Airlines has committed to order a variant of the 737 featuring new more fuel-efficient engines, pending final airplane configuration and launch approval of the program by the Boeing board of directors.”
If approved, American wouldn’t be the only one interested in a re-engined Boeing 737. Flight Global quoted, Bill Ayer, CEO of Alaska parent Alaska Air Group, during an earnings call yesterday as saying, “We are very much in favor of lower fuel burn, and if Boeing can do this sooner rather than later, that’s a good a thing.” Alaska Airlines operates a fleet of only Boeing 737s.
Southwest Airlines is another all-Boeing airline based in the US and Brad Hawkins with corporate communications told AirlineReporter.com, “We, of course, have frequent dialogue with our partners, including Boeing, but we don’t disclose the details of those conversations unless we have an update to share.” I think it would be obvious that Southwest would like a plane with better efficiency to start replacing their large fleet of older 737-300s and 737-500s.
Computer rendering of an Airbus A320 in American Airlines livery. Notice the flat gray paint. Image via Airbus.
It seems the bottom line here is survival. American knows that gas isn’t going to get any cheaper and continuing to operate fuel inefficient aircraft is not going to be sustainable. However, survival is going to take more than just new aircraft.
One of the first things I thought of with such a large order is, “livery change.” When I posted how I wasn’t a huge fan of the current American Airlines livery, I got a lot of backlash. It seems that either folks love the current livery or feel it is aged and time to go. If American is looking to modernize their fleet and move into the future, I think they need a livery to match.
Yes, it is unique design, but it just looks aged. Then add the fact that the Boeing 787 Dreamliner (which American has 42 on order) won’t work with American’s bare fuselage livery due to the composite material and you have a great opportunity to change livery. I think painting the aircraft with a metallic silver base paint with updated, swooping, red, white, and blue lines could look slick. Then add a single color AA Eagle to the tail and you have yourself one nice looking livery — with ties to the past. Going with a flat gray paint scheme was done with the Airbus A300 and it looks better than the patchy A300 with bare metal, but still not a modern looking scheme. When I asked American about the possibility of a new livery they stated that, “Those decisions have not been made yet. That said, we do have to determine how to paint the 787. Obviously, we have to determine and make that decision well before the actual delivery in 2014 since painting is part of the manufacturing process.”
With the retro-fitting of new interiors, the addition of the Boeing Sky Interior on their new Boeing 737-800s and new aircraft on order, American Airlines appears to be making a genuine effort. They have also been working to improve their interaction with customers via Facebook and Twitter, which helps them connect with the younger (and more hip older) passengers. They still need to tackle their problems with having a lot of debt, not making a profit and labor cost disadvantage.
After the order was announced, there has been a lot of criticism of American not buying all US built Boeing aircraft — accusing the airline of being un-American. That seems a bit mis-informed since we live in a global economy and trying to make the best deal to earn the most money possible sounds pretty darn American to me. United and Delta, who are the world’s two largest airlines, both operate both Boeing and Airbus aircraft. Not to mention that Air France (Airbus is headquartered in France) operates a fleet of over 80 Boeing (including cargo) airliners.
Be sure to also read:
* Jon Ostrower, on his blog Flight Blogger, posted an informative story on all the numbers relating to this deal and some are a bit surprising.
* Brett Snyder, on CrankyFlier, takes a detailed look how these new aircraft will more than replace the aging MD-80, Boeing 757 and Boeing 767-200 in American’s fleet. He theorizes that American might be looking to replace some smaller aircraft currently flying with American Eagle with larger Airbus A319 and Boeing 737-700 planes.
American Airlines DC-10 taking off.
This blog is guest written by my father, who was a Naval aviator for twenty years and got me started on my passion for aviation. During a recent chat he shared this story with me and I asked him to write it up as it is a piece of airline history. Here is his story on a trip to New York’s JFK airport:
The year was 1977. I was a young Lieutenant in the United States Navy, stationed at Whidbey Island in Washington. One of the requirements of my job was to represent the EA-6B Model Manager at a NATOPS review conference held at Bethpage, NY. Accompanying me was the other half of the NATOPS Model Manager team, Gary.
We departed out of Seattle, WA for an uneventful trip to New York on an American Airlines DC-10. The airline had a new promotional program called ’œthe bottomless wine glass’. The bottomless wine glass meant there was an unlimited amount of free wine available for the duration of the trip. On the trip to New York we were very responsible drinkers. Our return trip was to be a horse of another color.
The return trip was also on an American Airlines DC-10, however, during this portion of our trip we took full advantage of their bottomless wine glass program. We didn’t have to drive when we arrived back home, so why not? We were seated in the center section, second row back from the bulkhead close to the movie screen. We were also on the aisle, hence easy access to the passing flight attendant.
The flight was seemingly uneventful with us consuming copious amounts of wine until the start of the in-flight movie. Neither of us opted for a headset as that would have cost a few dollars and we were too busy talking about solving ’œthe world problems’ anyway.
The movie started and Gary said that he had recently seen it and from that point on gave a running dialog on the movie since I hadn’t seen it. I’m sure all those around us were totally put out, but, no one said a thing to us.
We continued to drink all the way back to Seattle. In those days there was no such thing as being too intoxicated on a plane; or so it seemed. After landing, I quickly exited the plane thinking Gary was right behind me. I waited at the top of the ramp for what seemed an eternity. Finally, I saw Gary being helped by two flight attendants up the ramp. They brought him over to me a relayed the following events.
Upon exiting the aircraft Gary waited at the aircraft exit door for me to deplane. After everyone had departed the aircraft they closed the door and proceeded to coach Gary up the ramp toward the terminal. Gary then ’œbroke’ free and went back to the aircraft door and started banging on the door and calling out for me. He emphatically told the attendants I was still inside. He was so adamant about me still being onboard they opened the aircraft door and escorted him inside to a totally dark cabin. Still insistent and sounding threatening, Gary made them do a walk through the plane with him.
Flashlights in hand they scoured the entire aircraft. Satisfied I was no longer onboard he quietly deplaned and came up to the terminal where he found me.
Looking back on the inconsideration we showed those around us, I am ashamed. I am not particularly proud of that story but it did happen in an era were heavy drinking was acceptable and Viet Nam was a recent memory so people were more tolerant of military personnel. My how things have changed since then, probably for the better.
Image: 64N31W
When arriving at DFW, the sky was mostly blue and it was sunny. Things changed quickly.
It is obvious right? Being stuck at an airport because of delays or a cancelled flight is no fun. Recently, I had a fun little experience in Dallas after flying from Seattle (out of BFI) to Dallas (DFW) for American’s delivery flight of their first Boeing 737 with Sky Interior.
The delivery flight arrived at DFW about 4pm and my flight out wasn’t until 9:15pm. I took my time to get over to the terminal (our flight ended at a maintenance hangar) and since I had the time, I decided to wait stand-by for the earlier 7:30pm flight. I sat enjoying my window view, when all of a sudden alarms and warnings started to come over the speaker system.
“There is a severe weather pattern coming towards the airport. Everyone must go to the center of the building and away from any windows.” This was followed by talk of tornadoes and reassurance this was not a drill. It became obvious the airport meant business.
Some passengers bolted to the bathrooms, which were severe weather areas, and others couldn’t care less and had to be told by employees they must move. I decided to take the middle ground and figured it was a good time to go get some food, which happened to be in the center of the building. While enjoying my airport food (okay, enjoying might be a bit strong), we all started to hear very loud noises in the terminal. Large hail started to fall, making disturbing noises on the ceiling. People who were on planes had to be escorted off back into the terminal.
I couldn’t see outside, since I was away from the windows, but looking at news reports, there was hail the size of baseballs in the area. Love Field (also in Dallas) reported a tornado that touched down near the airport. After things calmed down about 30 minutes later, the 7:30 flight I was on stand-by for had an updated departure time of 9pm. My original 9:15pm flight still showed as “on-time.” I was #5 on the stand-by list, so decided to ditch my attempt for the earlier flight and started my trek from Terminal D to Terminal A.
DFW has a really slick train system inside security to quickly get passengers to any of the terminals. Unfortunately it does not run during severe weather, so I had about 45minutes to hoof it through the airport. I kept checking screens and flight 1575 from DFW to SFO kept showing “On-Time” as other flights slowly changed from “On-Time” to “Delayed.”
When I made it to the gate at 9:00pm, the flight still showed ready to go and that is when they announced the flight had been diverted to Houston due to weather. American started checking planes that were parked at DFW for damage and realized there were quite a few planes with damage and started cancelling flights. However, the few flights that had their aircraft diverted were still showing as delayed and not cancelled.
A little after 10pm American Tweeted:
“All AA and Eagle operations @DFWAirport are suspended for the remainder of the night due to #storm activity. Appreciate your patience.”
Hmm. That caused a bit of confusion. I tried to tweet to @AmericanAir to get clarification, but they were unanswered and people at the airport kept confirming that our flight was still a go.
Thousands of people at the airport lined up waiting for hours to get re-booked on flights the next day. Those of us on the SFO flight felt a little bad that our flight was still going when so many were being inconvenienced, but were happy to have our flight. With all the stranded passengers, hotels quickly filled up and it didn’t take long for all the cots that DFW provided to disappear as people started to set up camp.
Even with all the chaos, I have to say that American did a great job keeping us informed since our departure time kept being pushed back. A little after midnight, we were informed our plane was now coming from Oklahoma. I jumped on FlightAware.com and found our aircraft and quite a few others in-bound to DFW from Houston and Oklahoma. Our plane finally arrived a bit before 1am. People already started gathering around the gate ready to get on board as soon as possible. We were told it would take about 20 minutes to clean the plane and off we would go to SFO — finally.
There were a few empty seats on the flight and the gate agent started calling up people from the very long stand-by list. The flight was set to leave at about 1:30am, meaning we would arrive at 3:30am. I started figuring out how little sleep I was going to get, when we got the announcement:
“I have bad news…the plane is here, but we have no crew and American is cancelling the flight.” People reacted like they were just told they had an incurable disease. Some cried, others yelled. I couldn’t help but be a bit angry myself. I had been waiting for nine hours for this flight, while watching thousands of others get re-booked on flights and make hotel reservations. What kind of chance did we have to get on any decent flights to our destinations?
That poor gate agent. He had to know the news wouldn’t be taken well. After the announcement, two guys came storming up and just started yelling at him. I guess the cops had to be called over, but I wasn’t sticking around. 160 people just found out their flight was cancelled and most started lining up at the gate. I headed down the terminal to find a shorter line and luckily found one.
At this point I knew I wasn’t going to make it to SFO in time for an event I had scheduled, so now it was time to try to make it back home to Seattle. When I told the agent that I wanted to get to Seattle, the agent next to her looked over and said, “Good luck with that!” Sigh.
I have to say the agent I worked with was a trooper. She obviously was working way past her hours for that day and has dealt with many upset folks. Even though I was tired and frustrated, I tried to be as polite as possible. At first it looked like I might be stuck at DFW for a day and a half, but after some creativity she got me a flight to Orange, CA (SNA) on American and then to Seattle on Alaska — sweet.
Cots were gone and I heard rumors that people were having to go way out of town to get a hotel room. My new flight wasn’t leaving until 2:40pm — over 12hours later. Luckily, the airline gods were smiling on me. While at the counter a nice elderly gentleman was standing next to the counter. He was turning in a hotel voucher since he decided to camp out at the airport. I asked if I might have it and she gave it to me — for the first time in a long while, things were looking up.
Since this was a weather-related incident, American wasn’t picking up the tab, but it did guarantee a room and at a discounted rate. After calling to confirm there was a room (only one left) and hailing a cab, I was settled into my room by 3am.
It was a very long and frusterating day, but I fell asleep with a big smile on my face. I had the ability to take a shower and a nice comfy bed to sleep in and that was more than most people in my same situation could say. Cancellations are not fun for anyone, but they are part of the huge transportation infrastructure we have in America. Even with the weather causing the issues, I heard so many people blaming the airline. Do they really think that American wants to cancel flights? Keep their employees up extremely late and lose a bunch of money? Heck no. I was disappointed that I was missing my planned event, but I had to stop and realize it could have been worse. People at the airport I was talking to were missing bigger things like a wedding and even a funeral.
Passengers get away from the window during tornado warnings.
Yes, with our flight, American dropped the ball. They should have known there would be no flight crew and just cancelled the flight hours prior to give us all a better chance. Even while placed in a difficult situation I had to keep reminding myself that the airline business is extremely complicated and when an airline’s main hub gets shut down and you have people managing thousands of passengers, crew and employees, obviously some things will fall between the cracks. Airlines do not have the ability to be fully staffed at all times just in case situations like this occur.
With all the weather issues and thousands of flights each day, it is pretty amazing this doesn’t happen more often. Yeah, it might have taken me almost a day and a half to get home, but it is still better than driving. Just because I might love the airline business, doesn’t mean I have to love every aspect. Luckily experiencing cancellations like this is a rare occurrence.
Have you had an interesting cancellation story? Did an airline really go out of their way to help you? Or hurt you? Please share in the comments.
Last week I had the chance to check out American Airline’s newest aircraft — a Boeing 737-800 with Boeing’s Sky Interior. This is just one step in American renewing their fleet and brand.
The airline is currently in the process of replacing their aging MD-80 aircraft with new Boeing 737s. American plans to retire at least 25 MD-80s in 2011 and it is not exactly known when all MD-80s will be out of service. American will receive an additional 54 Boeing 737s with Sky Interior over the next two years (story continues below photos).
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Inside the cabin of an American 737 being retrofitted.
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New pop down LCD screens are being in stalled.
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New bins are being in stalled on AA
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American’s new Sky Interior looks updated and clean.
Click photos for larger version. All retrofit photos by American, Sky Interior by Airline Reporter.
The airline plans to upgrade their older 737s to have newer seating and larger bins. In May 2010, American began updating its existing fleet of Boeing 737s. The retrofit includes the installation of new seats, new cabin interiors, updated in-flight entertainment systems and more storage throughout the aircraft. The retrofit is slated for completion by the first quarter of 2013. The retrofits will be handled in-house by American employees at the airline’s Maintenance & Engineering base located in Tulsa, OK.
Video: American Airlines Boeing 737 gets makeover
American is also in the process of updating all Boeing 757s used on domestic routes. Updates include the installation of new seats, new cabin interiors and updated in-flight entertainment throughout the aircraft. Also, First Class will receive two additional seats, which increases the number of First Class seats from 22 to 24 on each aircraft. The 757 aircraft enhancements began in August 2010 and have a planned completion of December 2015. As of early May 2011, American has completed upgrades to ten 757s.
American will also be increasing their fleet of Boeing 777s with the addition of five 777-300ERs with deliveries slated for 2012 and 2013. The -300ERs will supplement their -200ERs and will become the largest aircraft that American flies.
“American Airlines has made a significant investment to enrich the flying experience for our customers through the purchase of new aircraft and the refurbishment of our existing fleet,” said Virasb Vahidi, American’s Chief Commercial Officer. “At American, we are focused on providing a differentiated customer experience, with a distinct focus on best delivering what premium customers value most ’“ world-class products and services. The delivery of the first 737-800 with the new Boeing Sky Interior is our most recent step to deliver on this commitment.”
In the past, there have been times where I had serious concerns about American’s future. They had an aging fleet of aircraft and were not merging like other large airlines. They also had a lack of a solid presence on social media and really just weren’t as “fun” as other airlines. It appears that American realizes they need to change the way they do business to better compete against other airlines. American has already spent $5.5 billion in new aircraft, facility enhancements and on-board improvements between 2007 to 2011 and plans to spend more in the future.
American is trying very hard to stay relevant and hoping that customers will take notice of their effort. Will it be enough to survive without a merger? Only time will tell, but it seems American is on a positive track.
Last week Virgin American started flying to Chicago O’Hare International Airport (ORD) via Los Angeles (LAX) and San Francisco (SFO). Not only was there celebration, but a big challenge placed to legacy airlines to watch their back — Virgin America is in town.
Virgin America seems like the little airline that could. Back in 2007 when they first started operations many of the large carriers barely took notice. Now, the San Francisco based airline keeps growing with a fleet of 39 Airbus A320 and A319 aircraft that serve 14 destinations. The airline currently has 60 additional Airbus A320s on order and plans to keep growing their route network. It is hard to argue that Virgin America does not deliver the best in-cabin product of any domestic carrier, and with prices matching other carriers, they could give the legacy airlines a run for their money (story continues below photos).
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One of Virgin’s Airbus A320s.
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Some bubbly in San Fran before take off.
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Get your fight on.
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Adrian Grenier from the show Entourage with Sir Richard Branson.
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Virgin America’s CEO David Cush cuts the ribbon.
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Sir Richard Branson in boxing gear.
All photos by Nick Rose, click for larger.
’œUntil today, travelers flying from O’Hare to the two largest California airports had little choice and few low fare options. We believe our flights will be a breath of fresh air for Chicago travelers and thank the City and O’Hare officials for their efforts to open up access to new competition,’ said Virgin America President and Chief Executive Officer David Cush. It seems that Cush might be talking directly about United (which is based in ORD) and American Airlines (which has a hub at ORD) when he stated, “Flyers deserve more options than just the off-chance they may be upgraded from poor to mediocre on a legacy airline.”
The legacies are fighting back. United Airlines has announced a double mileage award program where residents of Illinois or California can earn double miles when flying between Chicago and LAX or SFO. United has also added an additional five round trip flights to SFO and one additional flight to LAX. American plans to add one additional flight between ORD and LAX in June.
United spokesman Rahsaan Johnson told the Chicago Tribune, “Our strategy is squarely focused on giving customers the most convenient schedule and access to the broadest network. We have competed with multiple carriers in these two Chicago-West Coast markets for years. We will continue to do so and will continue to win.” Those sure sound like confident fighting words to me.
Sir Richard Branson told the Chicago Tribune that, “We’ve had to fight our way into Chicago,” as he credited the big airlines at O’Hare with “knocking out” Virgin’s previous attempts to serve O’Hare for three years.
Virgin America isn’t stopping the fight at just flying to ORD, they too are offering special frequent flier rewards. Passengers flying between now and August 31st will be able to earn triple Elevate rewards points flying between LAX, SFO and ORD. Who doesn’t love a little battle of the airlines — well maybe the airlines, but it sure is good for customers.
Of course the large elephant in the room is that Virgin America doesn’t have a good track record of making profit. Yes, they are still a new airline flying new airplanes into expensive airports, so it could just take time to make a solid profit. Virgin America does offer more bang for the buck, but will it be enough to woo over passengers who are loyal to larger carriers? So far it seems that Virgin American think they can. They brought the fight to Chicago and it looks like others airlines have heard the call. It will be interesting to see what happens next.
Due to being stuck in Dallas because of bad weather, I was not able to make this exciting trip with Sir Richard Branson. Luckily, others were able to capture the excitement:
* Story and photos from Jaunted of Virgin America’s Chicago event
* You can see more of Nick Rose’s photos on his Facebook page (a big thanks for sharing your photos)
