American Airlines is testing a customer-friendly move to hold connecting flights for delayed passengers, when doing so won’t cause problems for the operation. This effort is underway as of today at Dallas – Fort Worth airport, and if all goes well it’ll be expanded.
American Airlines, Dallas – Fort Worth
Here’s what’s been shared internally with employees:
United Airlines runs something called ConnectionSaver that has been unique. They will delay flights for passengers to help them make connections. But they don’t do it all the time. Their computers take several things into account.
- Many flights are projected to arrive early. They’ll delay a flight where doing so means the flight will arrive on-time rather than early.
- Delaying the last flight of the day is more common, because the consequences of missed connections are greater (forced overnight) and because delaying the plane and other passengers has fewer consequences (they won’t be connecting and the plane may just be overnighting). A long delay could require crew to start late the next day to get minimum rest, but a short delay usually won’t have much effect.
American Airlines gate agents can’t hold a flight for connecting passengers. The airline only lets them hold the door instead of closing it 10 minutes before departure when a customer is running up to the gate and in the agent’s direct line of site, or for the last flight of the day they’ve been allowed to wait until 5 minutes to departure for doors close.
Dallas – Fort Worth Gate A16
And agents don’t have to do this. In fact, they may be concerned about getting in trouble if they do because the airline has prioritized exact on-time departures (D0) even when they aren’t needed over over getting those last passengers on board.
In fact American will remove passengers from flights before they even miss them, simply because American’s computers project that they will miss the flight. This lets them give the seat to another passenger that wants to get on – and do it earlier, when it won’t delay the crucial last minutes prior to departure (they call this system ‘AURA’ or the AUtomated ReAccommodation Tool).
American Airlines
Generally speaking an airline is more likely to hold your flight if,
- a lot of customers are trying to make the connection
- there aren’t other options for getting this group to their destination
- delaying the flight will have only a limited effect on the operation – further delays, crew timing out, other passengers misconnecting later
Even still, United’s ConnectionSaver has held planes for over 2,000 passengers in a day. It’ll be fascinating to watch American tune their new system and see how many connections they’re able to save for customers.
American Airlines DFW Airport Gate D21
It does seem like American has started to make some effort paying more attention to customers and fixing pain points. They just announced that premium cabin customers will no longer have their headphones collected an hour before landing and that wifi will be free on most of their planes starting next year.
We’re only weeks away from the inaugural of their new business class and opening of their new style business class lounge in Philadelphia. They have a long way to go with inflight food and beverage, but it’s really good to see some green shoots at the airline.
By
By
