American Airlines Wants Friendlier Flight Attendants — Because Happy Passengers Apply For Credit Cards

American Airlines now issues scores to flight attendants. That’s ‘to help them know how they’re doing’ and low scores don’t necessarily mean discipline. While pitching the credit card inflight is voluntary, and earns flight attendants extra income for approvals, these approvals are also performance score “accelerators” in the new system. The airline is also making a major push to “get flight attendants excited about in-flight credit card pitches,” according to aviation watchdog JonNYC. They are “being told just how much money they can make from them if they succeed (pay off loans, travel the world, etc)” While the number one reason that passengers don’t apply and flight attendants don’t get paid commission is that they do not make the announcements, “it’s being emphasized that providing passengers exceptional service during the flight is the single best way to increase uptake.” The psychology here is that customers who are happy with American are more likely to apply, and customers who feel well taken care of by a flight attendant will want to apply out of a sense of reciprocal obligation. AAMajor push underway to get FAs excited about in-flight credit card pitches. FAs being told just how much money they can make from them if they succeed (pay off loans, travel the world, etc) Expect flights to become slightly more annoying in this regard. Now, it should… — JonNYC (@xJonNYC) August 3, 2026 There are flight attendants earning six figures at airlines getting card approvals. However, the way these announcements are done matters a great deal. Kevin Williamson observed that there was a certain “Clockwork Orange sensation [to] being literally strapped into a seat while someone screams corporate banalities at you on a loudspeaker fifteen inches from your head” and suggested, It is a “limited-time” offer in the sense that the sun eventually will run out of gas and become a dying star, first engulfing the Earth in fire and then leaving the wreck of the solar system a sterile plane of interstellar cold and utter silence, which will be interrupted only by some addled flight attendant screeching about the limited-time…card offer. The announcement is often a wake up call at 6 a.m after a redeye flight, or the first thing you’d hear once airborne on a 5 a.m. departure. Yet only about 14% of passengers on a given flight have an AAdvantage credit card. That’s a huge opportunity to grow the card portfolio. The people most likely to be interested in the American Airlines credit card are those already flying American Airlines. One good reason, by the way, for airline seat back entertainment is that the entertainment can be paused during flight attendant announcements. When people are using their own devices, they’re free to ignore card pitches. American Airlines should work with Citi to sponsor a return of the seatback screens. I’ve even argued that American should increase the size of its lavatories and plaster them with credit card ads. That way a revenue stream would attach to the lavatory space, and American would no longer need to view the fact they have to provide lavs as deadweight loss. Topics on this page