A major series of events for U.S. airline passengers recently unfolded.
These developments began with Delta Air Lines (DAL) -) and soon involved other major carriers.
Related: American Airlines says it now has 'something no one else offers'
Delta announced in September that it was making adjustments to its SkyMiles loyalty plan.
Reacting to what it perceived as excess crowding in its airport lounges, the company decided to limit the number of passengers allowed to visit them.
In short time, due to a massive influx of complaints, Delta decided it would not, after all, implement some of the changes.
But significant damage in the competitive arena had already been done.
Alaska Airlines (ALK) -) had started offering enticing matches to SkyMiles members.
Similar efforts to lure Delta's elite customers away and make their loyalty programs more appealing were initiated by JetBlue (JBLU) -) and Southwest Airlines (LUV) -).
This week, American Airlines (AAL) -) announced a new premium plan for businesses and their travelers, called AAdvantage Business, that the company said was the first of its kind.
Image source: Shutterstock
United Airlines says status matches are up dramatically
In United Airlines' (UAL) -) third quarter earnings call on Oct. 18, Andrew Nocella, executive vice president and chief commercial officer, was queried about status matches.
"I was wondering if you are seeing — if you can kind of put into context how many requests for status matches you've seen since Delta made those changes last month," asked CNBC's Leslie Josephs.
"Look, I'll give a little bit of commentary," Nocella said. "Are status matches up dramatically? Yes. Is dramatically a big number? No. So, that's all I'll say on that front."
So Nocella said status matches have seen a dramatic uptick, but tempered that response by downplaying the impact of the change.
"In other words, the big spike is off of a low base," wrote Gary Leff on View From the Wing. "And remember as well that they weren't actively promoting it; a customer would have to proactively reach out to the airline and make the request."
"Neither American nor United had moved to exploit Delta’s most valuable customers looking to leave the SkyMiles program," Leff continued. "Numerous readers expressed reticence to make the jump to American and United, not knowing whether they’d just follow Delta with similar changes. That’s been a lost opportunity."
United also said in the call that it would not be making big changes to its premium programs in 2025. Nocella explained this as follows:
Recently, the question I get asked the most often by our frequent flyers is about potential changes to achieve premier status on United. The good news is we have no material changes planned for 2025 program year. We’ve carefully managed our premier population in recent years to maintain a robust and valuable set of benefits for each premier member. We very much believe in never causing a situation where everyone has a premier status which obviously results in no one receiving an adequate level of premier benefits. Our United strategy to offer premier members access to more premium seats than each of our competitors is enhancing the value of our frequent flyer loyalty program.
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