American Airlines Flight Attendants Will Be Able to Offer In-Flight Compensation This Month
American Airlines flight attendants will soon have the technology to offer inconvenienced passengers with in-flight compensation for their troubles. The technology, which is called iSolve, will allow flight attendants to offer on-the-spot compensation to passengers via their tablets. According to the Chicago Business Journal, the function is set to be rolled out later this month.
The iSolve technology won't allow flight attendants to compensate passengers with cash or vouchers. Instead, flight attendants will be allowed to compensate passengers in the form of AAdvantage miles. Of course, this means that the passenger must be enrolled in the AAdvantage program in order to get any in-flight compensation. It's unclear how many AAdvantage miles will be awarded to passengers, but the amount will likely vary based on the situation.
Examples of in-flight inconveniences that are eligible for the iSolve compensation include meal shortages, non-functioning in-flight entertainment systems, issues with the hard product in general and other common issues passengers tend to complain about while flying.
The iSolve software is already used by some AA employees. Those in the airport in customer service already have the feature in place to award unhappy travelers.
American hopes that by allowing flight attendants to offer compensation for passenger troubles that it could potentially help to deescalate a situation. But flight attendants think it could mean bad news for them. Some believe that as more passengers find out about the technology, they'll be more inclined to complain — knowing that AAdvantage miles could be instantly awarded.
In terms of what the other major US carriers already have in place, American is playing catch up. Both Delta and United already offer similar programs for their flight attendants to award passengers when things go wrong in flight.
The announcement from AA of implementing iSolve for in-flight instances comes at the same time that flight attendants are going through a 12.5-hour deescalation training.