7 ms·

American Airlines has so much extra wine that it is starting a delivery service

51 points by autoditype 6y ago

messe 6y ago
99$ for 3 bottles from American Airlines a month? I'm struggling to understand who the target market is.
- peteretep 6y ago
  https://www.vinesse.com/afc/collection.cfm?lv=ctall&cri=All%20Wines&NIS=0&src=afcweb2021 https://www.vinesse.com/afc/collection.cfm?lv=ctall&cri=All%... People who want some pretty decent reasonable wines at a 30% discount?
  - jojobas 6y ago
    There's no decent or indecent wine. Nobody can tell a $500 wine from $10 wine in a blind tasting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_wine_tasting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_wine_tasting
    - zizee 6y ago
      There is definitely good wine and not so good wine, if you define "good" as something you like. I could believe that there is a tenuous link between price and quality, but that's not the same as saying there is no good wine.
      - jojobas 6y ago
        Have a friend hold a blind tasting for you. Did that to a couple of headstrong wine people, they were unable to tell their favorite (chardonnay for one and shiraz for another) from a bunch of AUD7 bottles.
        rblatz 6y ago
        My wife and I accidentally did an experiment the other day. Grabbed a random bottle we got as a gift to drink with our pizza. It was a cab sauv which is a wine we usually don’t care for. We both were surprised at how much we did like it and how smooth it was. The next day we were shopping at target and saw it was an $85 bottle of wine. Not sure if we could have told it from a $40 bottle, but it certainly stood head and shoulders above the $20 bottles we typically buy.
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
        al3xandre 6y ago
        There can be such a wide range of different wines within « chardonnay » and « Shiraz » that saying one of the two is you « favorite wine » is meaningless. Hence the outcome of this blind testing.
    - peteretep 6y ago
      You are making a much stronger assertion than is supported by your link
      - jojobas 6y ago
        >...the objective evaluation of large numbers of wines as currently attempted at wine competitions is, he asserts, "beyond human ability". Wine experts also can't tell if they're tasting 3 glasses from the same bottle. I don't mean to say you can't stuff up a batch of wine, but basically everything that made it to the store in the current state of quality control is good enough to not be told apart by anyone.
        peteretep 6y ago
        > Wine experts also can't tell if they're tasting 3 glasses from the same bottle. No. It is possible to select three different wines that even people with excellent palettes can't really differentiate between, and it is possible with some suggestion to make people believe the same wine is different wines. It is also true that some wine "experts" have terrible palettes. That is not the same piece of information as "wine experts also can't tell if they're tasting 3 glasses from the same bottle".
        jojobas 6y ago
        I'm referring to this paper quote in the wikipedia article: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-wine-economics/article/abs/an-examination-of-judge-reliability-at-a-major-us-wine-competition/15EF999FBAC63C5FB6DCF1C2F4BB6655 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-wine-econ... They literally fed the same judges the same wine in multiple glasses and got different scores.
        zaphirplane 6y ago
        I took that to mean the high volume in competition affects the consistency of the results
    - esoterica 6y ago
      Nothing in the link you posted supports your assertion.
    - al3xandre 6y ago
      95% of people are also unable to tell the difference between a secure properly e2e encrypted chat, and an insecure chat. Does that mean that there is no insecure and secure chat softwares?
      - acct776 6y ago
        Yeah, alcohol quality shows itself off the next morning when waking up not in pain, for me.
      - nojster 6y ago
        With e2e vs insecure, there is an objective differentiating factor, while in wine (apart from price, there apparently isn’t). To leverage your example, it would be like selling “secure e2e chat” (label) at a high price, although it uses insecure tech.
      - jonny_eh 6y ago
        If people claimed that e2e encrypted chats were more enjoyable, you may have had a point.
- cbhl 6y ago
  This looks comparable to other monthly wine subscriptions. For example, Bright Cellars' subscription was $80+S+H+tax for 4 bottles a month, with regular upsell emails for a 6-pack or 12-pack or a box of cheese. It looks like American Airlines has had a partnership with Vinesse dating back to at least 2017: https://thepointsguy.com/2017/11/review-vinesse-wine-club-worth-it/ https://thepointsguy.com/2017/11/review-vinesse-wine-club-wo.... It looks like what's new is that they've slapped the Flagship brand on it, and given it a nice story to go with it.
ars 6y ago
$50,000 in sales? How could that possibly be worth it for them. Yes, I know the article says they "want to engage with customers", but that's hardly enough money to make that worthwhile.
- jrockway 6y ago
  -$50,000 is probably less than an ad on CNN.com would have cost, so I guess they come out ahead.
  - kevinlou 6y ago
    On top of that - avgeeks will buy up ANYTHING plane related, so there's an easy market to serve there
- ARandomerDude 6y ago
  Maybe a trial. See how it goes and expand if it's successful.
- ledauphin 6y ago
  one wonders whether it's literally about the marketing placement that this article gives them. I'm not in marketing, but I somehow wouldn't be surprised if this was worth more than $50,000 in "free" marketing.
- patentatt 6y ago
  Well if you’re the guy buying and managing wine for AA, maybe you have some extra time on your hands and some extra pallets of wine given the circumstances. So rather than be axed by management, why not propose a wacky wine club promo? This article alone could have saved a couple of people their jobs. And honestly, rightly so. $50k is not a lot in the grand scheme of things for an airline, but it just may patch a hole in the budget of ‘wine division’ of the AA catering subsidiary, or something to that effect. I’m sure it’s a modest coup for someone. I doubt it was dreamt up by the CEO and discussed at board meetings as a way to save the company or anything.
  - 6y ago
prepend 6y ago
This seems like The Onion. Airplane wine has always been pretty terrible to me and only purchased due to being stuck in a plane with nowhere else to go. Not sure how this will make more than just liquidating and eating the loss.
- un_montagnard 6y ago
  I had some of the best wines in the world while flying. Not on AA though.
  - jsonne 6y ago
    Emirates or Etihad or something? Some first class cabins seem to have nicer food + wine than most restaurants.
    - toomuchtodo 6y ago
      Singapore Air. Some of the best champagne I’ve ever had.
      - jsonne 6y ago
        I've heard they're a great airline also. Hope to fly with them some day.
      - o3099239 6y ago
        SQ Suites is definitely one of the best soft products in the sky. Dom and Krug aside, they even go over the top for coffee. First time I’ve had Jamaican Blue Mountain served in flight.
        toomuchtodo 6y ago
        Agreed. I'll go out of my way to fly SQ because the experience is so good compared to someone like United.
- peteretep 6y ago
fortran77 6y ago
United sent me (a Global Services level customer) a case of wine last month as a "token of their appreciation". Now I know why! They're just purging inventory.
- poulsbohemian 6y ago
  Well, given that apparently their other options was to start a wine club and sell it, take it as a sign they really like you as a customer?
  - zachberger 6y ago
    United already has a wine club
ben1040 6y ago
Buying airline wine reminds me of how hotel chains have product catalogs; you could buy the Westin "Heavenly Bed" mattress or their branded soap/shampoo. I used to be on an 80% travel job for work and that stuff would've been the last thing I wanted for home.
- brewdad 6y ago
  An argument could be made that if you are traveling that much, the hotel mattress becomes the one you get used to and your mattress at home becomes the odd one. Why not have the same one in both cases?
- DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
  Didn’t that whole thing start to give people an alternative to... er... taking “souvenirs” of hotel property during their stay?
wavesquid 6y ago
Qantas (the flagship Australian airline) has done this for years: https://wine.qantas.com/ https://wine.qantas.com/ I have received far more emails from them since covid though with "special deals" that don't seem that fantastic. Interestingly, I've also seen airline food kitchens starting to do home-delivery: https://www.gategourmetmeals.com.au/meals https://www.gategourmetmeals.com.au/meals --> they sell packs of e.g. 4 microwave meals for ~$15.

51 points by autoditype 6y ago

messe 6y ago

99$ for 3 bottles from American Airlines a month? I'm struggling to understand who the target market is.

peteretep 6y ago
https://www.vinesse.com/afc/collection.cfm?lv=ctall&cri=All%20Wines&NIS=0&src=afcweb2021 https://www.vinesse.com/afc/collection.cfm?lv=ctall&cri=All%... People who want some pretty decent reasonable wines at a 30% discount?
- jojobas 6y ago
  There's no decent or indecent wine. Nobody can tell a $500 wine from $10 wine in a blind tasting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_wine_tasting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_wine_tasting
  - zizee 6y ago
    There is definitely good wine and not so good wine, if you define "good" as something you like. I could believe that there is a tenuous link between price and quality, but that's not the same as saying there is no good wine.
    - jojobas 6y ago
      Have a friend hold a blind tasting for you. Did that to a couple of headstrong wine people, they were unable to tell their favorite (chardonnay for one and shiraz for another) from a bunch of AUD7 bottles.
      - rblatz 6y ago
        My wife and I accidentally did an experiment the other day. Grabbed a random bottle we got as a gift to drink with our pizza. It was a cab sauv which is a wine we usually don’t care for. We both were surprised at how much we did like it and how smooth it was. The next day we were shopping at target and saw it was an $85 bottle of wine. Not sure if we could have told it from a $40 bottle, but it certainly stood head and shoulders above the $20 bottles we typically buy.
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - al3xandre 6y ago
        There can be such a wide range of different wines within « chardonnay » and « Shiraz » that saying one of the two is you « favorite wine » is meaningless. Hence the outcome of this blind testing.
  - peteretep 6y ago
    You are making a much stronger assertion than is supported by your link
    - jojobas 6y ago
      >...the objective evaluation of large numbers of wines as currently attempted at wine competitions is, he asserts, "beyond human ability". Wine experts also can't tell if they're tasting 3 glasses from the same bottle. I don't mean to say you can't stuff up a batch of wine, but basically everything that made it to the store in the current state of quality control is good enough to not be told apart by anyone.
      - peteretep 6y ago
        > Wine experts also can't tell if they're tasting 3 glasses from the same bottle. No. It is possible to select three different wines that even people with excellent palettes can't really differentiate between, and it is possible with some suggestion to make people believe the same wine is different wines. It is also true that some wine "experts" have terrible palettes. That is not the same piece of information as "wine experts also can't tell if they're tasting 3 glasses from the same bottle".
        jojobas 6y ago
        I'm referring to this paper quote in the wikipedia article: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-wine-economics/article/abs/an-examination-of-judge-reliability-at-a-major-us-wine-competition/15EF999FBAC63C5FB6DCF1C2F4BB6655 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-wine-econ... They literally fed the same judges the same wine in multiple glasses and got different scores.
      - zaphirplane 6y ago
        I took that to mean the high volume in competition affects the consistency of the results
  - esoterica 6y ago
    Nothing in the link you posted supports your assertion.
  - al3xandre 6y ago
    95% of people are also unable to tell the difference between a secure properly e2e encrypted chat, and an insecure chat. Does that mean that there is no insecure and secure chat softwares?
    - acct776 6y ago
      Yeah, alcohol quality shows itself off the next morning when waking up not in pain, for me.
    - nojster 6y ago
      With e2e vs insecure, there is an objective differentiating factor, while in wine (apart from price, there apparently isn’t). To leverage your example, it would be like selling “secure e2e chat” (label) at a high price, although it uses insecure tech.
    - jonny_eh 6y ago
      If people claimed that e2e encrypted chats were more enjoyable, you may have had a point.
cbhl 6y ago
This looks comparable to other monthly wine subscriptions. For example, Bright Cellars' subscription was $80+S+H+tax for 4 bottles a month, with regular upsell emails for a 6-pack or 12-pack or a box of cheese. It looks like American Airlines has had a partnership with Vinesse dating back to at least 2017: https://thepointsguy.com/2017/11/review-vinesse-wine-club-worth-it/ https://thepointsguy.com/2017/11/review-vinesse-wine-club-wo.... It looks like what's new is that they've slapped the Flagship brand on it, and given it a nice story to go with it.

ars 6y ago

$50,000 in sales? How could that possibly be worth it for them. Yes, I know the article says they "want to engage with customers", but that's hardly enough money to make that worthwhile.

jrockway 6y ago
-$50,000 is probably less than an ad on CNN.com would have cost, so I guess they come out ahead.
- kevinlou 6y ago
  On top of that - avgeeks will buy up ANYTHING plane related, so there's an easy market to serve there
ARandomerDude 6y ago
Maybe a trial. See how it goes and expand if it's successful.
ledauphin 6y ago
one wonders whether it's literally about the marketing placement that this article gives them. I'm not in marketing, but I somehow wouldn't be surprised if this was worth more than $50,000 in "free" marketing.
patentatt 6y ago
Well if you’re the guy buying and managing wine for AA, maybe you have some extra time on your hands and some extra pallets of wine given the circumstances. So rather than be axed by management, why not propose a wacky wine club promo? This article alone could have saved a couple of people their jobs. And honestly, rightly so. $50k is not a lot in the grand scheme of things for an airline, but it just may patch a hole in the budget of ‘wine division’ of the AA catering subsidiary, or something to that effect. I’m sure it’s a modest coup for someone. I doubt it was dreamt up by the CEO and discussed at board meetings as a way to save the company or anything.
- 6y ago

prepend 6y ago

This seems like The Onion. Airplane wine has always been pretty terrible to me and only purchased due to being stuck in a plane with nowhere else to go. Not sure how this will make more than just liquidating and eating the loss.

un_montagnard 6y ago
I had some of the best wines in the world while flying. Not on AA though.
- jsonne 6y ago
  Emirates or Etihad or something? Some first class cabins seem to have nicer food + wine than most restaurants.
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    Singapore Air. Some of the best champagne I’ve ever had.
    - jsonne 6y ago
      I've heard they're a great airline also. Hope to fly with them some day.
    - o3099239 6y ago
      SQ Suites is definitely one of the best soft products in the sky. Dom and Krug aside, they even go over the top for coffee. First time I’ve had Jamaican Blue Mountain served in flight.
      - toomuchtodo 6y ago
        Agreed. I'll go out of my way to fly SQ because the experience is so good compared to someone like United.
peteretep 6y ago

fortran77 6y ago

United sent me (a Global Services level customer) a case of wine last month as a "token of their appreciation". Now I know why! They're just purging inventory.

poulsbohemian 6y ago
Well, given that apparently their other options was to start a wine club and sell it, take it as a sign they really like you as a customer?
- zachberger 6y ago
  United already has a wine club

ben1040 6y ago

Buying airline wine reminds me of how hotel chains have product catalogs; you could buy the Westin "Heavenly Bed" mattress or their branded soap/shampoo. I used to be on an 80% travel job for work and that stuff would've been the last thing I wanted for home.

brewdad 6y ago
An argument could be made that if you are traveling that much, the hotel mattress becomes the one you get used to and your mattress at home becomes the odd one. Why not have the same one in both cases?
DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
Didn’t that whole thing start to give people an alternative to... er... taking “souvenirs” of hotel property during their stay?

wavesquid 6y ago

Qantas (the flagship Australian airline) has done this for years: https://wine.qantas.com/ https://wine.qantas.com/ I have received far more emails from them since covid though with "special deals" that don't seem that fantastic. Interestingly, I've also seen airline food kitchens starting to do home-delivery: https://www.gategourmetmeals.com.au/meals https://www.gategourmetmeals.com.au/meals --> they sell packs of e.g. 4 microwave meals for ~$15.