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Dave

American releases revamped amenity kits

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American Airlines is introducing new onboard amenity kits for premium cabin customers in partnership with Shinola and D.S. & Durga.

These thoughtful and creative partners will help keep memories of customers’ travels top of mind, even when customers aren’t flying 35,000 feet in the air.

Clarissa Sebastian, Managing Director of Premium Customer Experience and Onboard Products for American Airlines, said

American often seeks brands that are rooted in creativity, especially those that celebrate travel before, during and after the actual journey. D.S. & Durga and Shinola underscore what we value in our partners at American — the ability to inspire connection with people or places that matter and experiences that enrich us.

Founded in Detroit, Shinola is a luxury design brand with an unwavering commitment to crafting products that are built to last, including world-class watches and premium leather goods. The new amenity kit bag was meticulously designed exclusively for American to get customers from place to place in style, while also offering the functionality to be repurposed post-flight to collect keepsakes or organise essentials for future journeys.

New York-based D.S. & Durga are perfumers known for ‘transportive’ fragrances with rich narratives. The amenity kits include aromas Rose Atlantic and Radio Bombay in lip balms and lotions. Rose Atlantic is inspired by summers on the New England coast with aromas of wild rose and the salty sea. Radio Bombay is described by the perfumers as a journey to the old days of Mumbai as ‘hot copper tubes warm the soft wood releasing the blooms of musk, cream, peach, ambrette, coco and cedar distillates’.

The new amenity kits, which are pouches of personal care items wrapped in sustainable packaging that American provides for premium customers on long-haul international and transcontinental flights, begin rolling out flights operating between the United States and Heathrow. This includes service to Heathrow from Dallas-Fort Worth, Miami, Chicago, Los Angeles, Charlotte, New York City, Philadelphia and Seattle.

The kits will roll out across other long-haul international and transcontinental flights throughout the summer.

Shinola has a reputation for assembling world-class clocks with an affinity for unique design. As an extension of AA’s partnership, Shinola is creating a desk clock featuring a dial made entirely from the original metal of American’s iconic, but now retired, fleet of McDonnell Douglas MD-80 aircraft.

The MD-80s were the long-time backbone of American’s fleet, carrying customers for more than 35 years before it was retired in 2019.

Each dial is unique and bears small markings from the aircraft’s decades of service. Clock dials are hand-cut and re-polished under the watchful eye of Moto Art in California, with final assembly in Shinola’s Detroit factory.

Shinola is creating a limited 1,000 desk clocks, and later this summer, Shinola wall clocks will be featured in select Admirals Club lounges.

Paul

Delta proposes flights between Haneda and 5 new US cities

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Delta Air Lines has filed an application with the U.S. Department of Transportation to launch daily daytime services between Tokyo-Haneda airport and Seattle, Detroit, Atlanta and Portland, as well as a twice-daily service between Haneda and Honolulu.

Delta’s proposed routes would be the only direct service offered by U.S. carriers between Haneda, Tokyo’s preferred airport for business travellers and the closest to the city centre, and the communities of Seattle, Portland, Atlanta and Detroit.

Together with the carrier’s existing service to Haneda from Minneapolis/St. Paul and Los Angeles, these new routes would bring Delta’s proven operational reliability and exceptional service to more customers travelling between a broad network of U.S. cities and Tokyo’s preferred airport.

Additionally, Delta’s proposal provides a competitive alternative for consumers to the service offered by other U.S. carriers and their Japanese joint venture partners, ANA and JAL.

Delta’s existing service to Haneda from Minneapolis/St. Paul and Los Angeles has already delivered substantial consumer benefits, including transporting over 800,000 passengers since the inauguration of daytime flights. The airline claims its proposal for additional service would:

  • Provide more attractive flight times for customers arriving and departing Haneda while enhancing connecting opportunities in the Pacific Northwest, Southeast, and Northeast;
  • Facilitate the development of trade and tourism between five of the largest U.S. metropolitan areas and Tokyo;
  • Serve a geographically diverse set of markets and communities through the comprehensive route networks offered at each of Delta’s hub gateways;
  • Provide additional capacity and greater convenience for the large business communities in all of these proposed gateways.

Delta has served the U.S. to Japan market for over 70 years, and currently offers seven daily departures from Tokyo with connections to over 150 destinations across the U.S and Latin America. The airline will launch a new service in April between Seattle and Osaka in partnership with Korean Air. Additionally, last year, Delta began partnering with Michelin consulting chef Norio Ueno to create meals for all cabins of service for flights to and from Japan.

Pending government approvals, the new routes would launch with the summer 2020 flying schedule.