American Airlines to Use Tablets to Help Flight Attendants Improve the Customer Experience

In the never-ending battle of airlines trying to do more to improve the customer experience, American Airlines is now planning to give their flight attendants tablets.  Personally, I am not sure what benefit this actually provides.  They talk about providing real-time flight data, but that already exists in numerous formats.

The only way I see this as being truly innovative is if they were to allow customers to input information of how their flight could be more pleasant, but I see two majors flaws with that idea.  One, passengers would have to actually fill out the information. Two, American would actually have to act on what the customer wants, and I just don’t see them changing their services without charging the customer even more, which comes back to problem number one.

It is great that American is trying to use technology to improve their offering, and over time we may very well see developments that prove that this was a great, innovative idea, but for now I feel like this is just one way for American to try and make people feel like their is an improvement without any real change.

Below you can find American’s video describing the new service.

American Airlines plans to offer more personalized service with a first of its kind Inflight tablet program with Samsung Galaxy Notes for all flight attendants. Designed to provide insight into customer preferences and real-time flight data, the devices will give flight attendants more access to information — all from the palm of their hands. For more information, visit aa.com.