Forget about all the announcements concerning connecting gates that are routinely ignored by passengers as their flight begins its descent.
American Airlines says it hopes to eliminate the announcements over the next several years with a system that will display gate information on video monitors scattered around a plane’s cabin.
The technology, developed by Airshow Inc., a subsidiary of Acterna Corp. of Burlington, Vt., will display the connecting gate information, a map of the airport and inform passengers of where they can obtain their bags.
“The ability to display connecting gate information is yet another exciting example of technology delivering pertinent flight information to our customers,” said Henry Joyner, American’s senior vice president of marketing and planning.
The information on connections will be organized in the same fashion as airport departure monitors showing flight destinations, flight times, flight numbers and gates.
Joyner said the airline plans to install the new system on its Boeing 777s before adding it to the rest of its aircraft. Cost of the new system wasn’t disclosed.
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Dennis Ferguson, the president of Airshow, said: “This is the first time a domestic U.S. airline has provided its passengers with visual, real-time connecting gate information that will help them find their flight connections and reduce anxiety levels as the plane is coming into the gate. This is going to a be huge benefit for passengers.”
In addition to making it easier for passengers to obtain arrival information they may need, it also will free up flight attendants to concentrate on making sure that passengers are fully restrained in their seats with their tray tables locked in the upright position.
More bonus miles: United Airlines, which lost thousands of its more loyal customers during last summer’s labor dispute with its pilots, keeps raising the ante in hopes of luring those people back.
In December the airline offered its best customers, those who flew more than 100,000 miles in 1999, 10,000 bonus miles or four flight upgrades. The offer coincided with United’s decision to reduce the miles needed to achieve premier, premier executive or 1K status.
Now the Elk Grove Township-based airline is offering customers a chance to earn double miles for any United flights purchased and completed between April 1 and June 15. The only condition is that passengers must complete 2,000 miles of travel before March 31.
Free flights OK’d: TWA retirees who feared they might lose their free flight benefits if the St. Louis-based airline is acquired by American Airlines have nothing to fear.
Those concerns had prompted long discussions in aviation chat rooms since an Internet news service claimed it had obtained a letter saying the benefit was to be abolished.
In a letter recently sent to TWA President and CEO Bill Compton, American Chairman and CEO Don Carty wrote: “In our initial discussions, TWA and American took great care to negotiate some very specific retiree benefits as part of our offer to acquire the assets of TWA. Of course, there were also many transition issues that we left for later resolution. One of these is the issue of TWA retiree travel privileges on American.
“I am very pleased to let you know that we have made the decision to extend travel privileges on American to TWA retirees, their spouses and dependent children. We have to formalize a complete TWA retiree travel program and will share more details on this as we move down the road.”
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