American’s PR team was nice enough to send over an FAQ for the upcoming first bag fee, and I thought I’d pass along at a courtesy.  Not that I’d tell you to go over to Dallas Love and fly Southwest to avoid the fee, but someone else might tell you that.
The majority of American’s passengers [...]

The Wall St. Journal has an interesting article looking at how much it’s costing airlines to fly you from here to there – you may be surprised to hear that upwards of 70% of your fare may be going just to pay the fuel bill. For example, American’s fuel bill for a roundtrip flight [...]

(Thanks to View from the Wing):
American Airlines announced that it will now charge $5 to book a reward ticket online (unless you’re executive platinum). Let me put that another way: their “free ticket” now costs $5. I know they need to get cash. That’s fine. It’s difficult to get annoyed [...]

In an age of fees for everything, American has actually eliminated one:  The airline has decided to drop its $2 fee for skycaps at all its airports.  Even better, it’s ended its ludicrous standoff with the skycaps and is permitting passengers to tip them again in Boston (if you missed it, AA was in a [...]

I thought it might be useful/depressing to pass along a quick overview of the horrible/annoying/depressing things we’ve seen happen since the fuel hike:
Northwest/Delta merger (less service + higher fares = unhappy flyers in Minot)
American’s $15 first bag fee
Everyone else’s $25 second bag fee
US Airways removes snacks from domestic flights
American cuts domestic capacity 12% and decimates [...]

A headline on a Reuters story today says that American Airlines will discontinue their JFK-Stansted service “to manage costs.”  Um, I believe the costs they are managing are the costs of driving Eos out business.  Which they did.  Great job — keep up that fair competition.

I know that my readers will be interested in this:  Nevada’s Moonlite Bunny Ranch brothel has offered to reimburse its customers $15 to cover American Airlines’ fee to check a bag.  I’m not sure if they’ll give you cash or $15 in services rendered.

You’ve no doubt seen elsewhere that American is now going to charge you to check your first bag. All of the stories, I’m certain, will have quotes from some travelers saying they’ll never fly again, and other quotes from travelers saying that they understand airlines have to make money. That’s the crux of [...]

Fuel cost have caused Oakland and LAX to lose existing and planned service:  American is pulling out of Oakland after serving the city for more than 60 years.  Oakland has also lost service from ATA, Aloha and Skybus in the past month or so.
JetBlue said that it will not launch planned service between LAX and [...]

American Airlines recently lost a lawsuit filed by skycaps in Boston who claimed they had lost wages because of American’s $2-per-bag charge for curbside check-in.  American’s subcontractor for skycaps then raised hourly rates for skycaps to about $12-14/hr, from the $5.15 per hour they used to receive (along with a hefty set of tips).
In response, [...]