Tim Winship of FrequentFlier.com has an interesting piece in OAG interviewing leaders with the mileage programs at American, Delta, and United.
American’s Kurt Stache comes off especially well — detailed answers, straight answers, and helpful answers. Part of it must be that he’s in an easy position — the American program offers plenty of opportunity for earning and is very good on the redemption side as well. No need to duck questions, though he doesn’t answer everything “for competitive reasons.” Still, I appreciate his candor.
Oddly, United’s Kenneth Feldman relies much more on marketing-speak and evasion. I say oddly because the United program is also a very good one, with much to be proud of.
Jeff Robertson of Delta comes off somewhere in between, he’s obviously in a difficult position with his airline in bankruptcy but he accords himself well with what he has to work with. The Skymiles program is a far lesser program than the offerings by United and American, both for the median member on the redemption side and for the elite member seeking meaningful travel benefits.
Read the whole thing…
I was surprised by the table at the bottom of the article. It indicates that Delta issued the most award tickets last year, almost twice as many a American. Can this be true? Perhaps it’s apples to oranges, since the American number does not include tickets on partner airlines, and the United number is for 2004.
I’m sure it’s apples to oranges, perhaps reflecting awards claimed across all of Delta and partners versus strictly those on AA metal?