What American Airlines could learn from business travelers’ concerns

Seeing someone who’s excited to be at an airport is like seeing a unicorn or a leprechaun: it doesn’t happen.

It’s an incredible challenge for airlines to keep customers satisfied — from getting baggage to seat upgrades — and American Airlines is no exception.

The airline has completely fleshed out its two-year merger with US Airways, a process which accentuated the usual shortcomings in airline service like flight delays and system errors.
And business travelers took notice.
Travel Leaders Group recently released their 2016 Business Travel Trends Survey, based on responses from 423 Travel Leaders Group travel agent experts throughout the United States whose portfolio consists of 50% or more business travel clients.
FEATURED JOBS
Audience Development Sales Director
Phoenix Business Journal
Data Warehouse Production Support
Allstate
Senior Finance Director
Moses, Inc.
Post a JobSee More Jobs
The top concern for business travelers is a delayed flight, which had a rise in concern from 68.5 percent in 2015 to 78.7 percent for 2016.
Business travelers noticed a number of delayed flights during and after American Airlines’ merger.
Bob Peth, a vice president of sales for the Isola Group in Chandler, had his flight to Denver delayed by 45 minutes in early December 2015, even though American finished its merger with US Airways in October.
“Traveling’s a bummer,” Peth said.
John Miller, COO of educational group Hands On Learning, has more than one million frequent flyer miles with American. Despite his massive amount of miles, Miller still noticed a number of delays.
“It took them a bit of a time,” Miller said. “There was interruption of service a number of times.”
Earning those miles and loyalty points is another main concern according to Travel Leaders Group’s survey, from 32.9 percent in 2015 to 37.6 percent for 2016.

Earning those miles and points was what kept Peth begrudged against American.
“If you had a lot of miles before on US Air,” Peth said. “You don’t now on American.”
John Daley, managing director for American at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, knows that not everything has been perfect.
“We understand that there are going to be growing pains and nuances,” Daley said.
Consumer Reports’ airline satisfaction rating for 2015 ranked the experience for travelers on US Airways, now American, and found that “first-class flyers were significantly less satisfied overall than the travelers on every other airline that qualified for our first-class Ratings, and were also significantly less satisfied than the coach travelers on the top six carriers in our coach Ratings.”

Watch the Phoenix Business Journal’s video to see what other business travelers said about the American experience.
Steven covers retail, restaurants, hospitality/tourism as well aviation, small business and nonprofits.