Late to the airport? No problem, as long as you're one of the few elite American Airlines customers. Starting September 30th, American will let its best customers leap through select airports like a pre-trial O.J. Simpson in a Hertz commercial. Passengers participating in PriorityAAccess will be whisked through designated security lanes, given top priority at boarding time and be the first passengers told their luggage landed 700 miles away.
American defines "elite" as
suckerscustomers who bought full-fare coach tickets, those who spent extra to sit in business- and first-class ticket holders and participants in any one of the airline's other stuttering programs such as AAdvantage and AAirpass. Unlike a
similar program by Delta, American's priority security lines won't require an annual fee, as long as you're one of their privileged few frequent fliers.
Emphasis on few: American ranked
fifth among eightlegacy carriers in a recent J.D. Power and Associates customer satisfaction survey.
"
American
Airlines greatly appreciates the loyalty of our customers, and we have
been working hard to deliver the product features and recognition we
know they value and deserve," Mark Mitchell, managing
director of customer experience told the
Dallas
Morning News
. Translation: we need to increase customer loyalty, but don't have the cash to give
actualperks. It's the famous
Jennifer Lopez "love don't cost a thing" business model so popular with cash-strapped airlines these days.
Though a Delta ticketholder estimated he could arrive at LAX 25 minutes
before departure and still make the plane using Delta's pay-per-perk
system, we suspect customers who are increasingly price conscious
will most likely forgo the full-fare coach tickets. Plus, the discount
carriers have been offering $15 and $20 priority boarding programs for
years. In effect, American is admitting that they're at the mercy of
the customers who pay the highest fares. Like
celebrity swagat the Emmys, a giveaway once again goes to those who could afford to buy it.
Back when this writer was working a high school summer job for someone who couldn't afford to give pay raises, we called this technique the "verbal raise": tell someone how important they are and hope they'll stick around with demanding real benefits. It didn't work then, it doesn't work now with the
Confederate currencyknown as frequent flier miles and we don't suspect it'll work with priority boarding.
Photo courtesy Flickr user
straightedge.
Published: Wed, 01 Oct 2008 10:54:10 GMT - Source: Blog.Wired.Com - Read the article
