American Airlines has a new private jet partnership that lets customers earn AAdvantage miles and Loyalty Points, creating a new path to elite status outside traditional airline flying. It is a small deal for American financially, but a much bigger one for TLC Jet—and it also undercuts the airline’s own past arguments against premium flying outside the traditional commercial terminal model.
Everyone debates which credit card is “best,” but most people are solving the wrong problem. This simple framework cuts through the noise, showing how to decide which card actually fits your spending, benefits, and goals.
Airbus is showing off a new A350-1000 first class concept with a two-passenger master suite, virtual windows, and elevated ceilings. Also Alaska quietly drops its price guarantee, Bilt gets a useful Home Away From Home hotel map, Southwest talks about hiring “low-ego” people, and coat hooks manage to confuse passengers.
Airports say concessionaires cannot simply raise listed prices, so instead travelers get hit with a growing list of surcharges that do the same thing more opaquely. The result is a strange bit of airport economics: prices look artificially lower than they really are, wage and benefit costs get broken out as separate fees, and workers may not even come out ahead because those extra charges can reduce what customers leave as tips.
A federal appeals court says Spirit Airlines has to turn over TSA security fees it kept when passengers canceled their trips and unused travel credits expired. The ruling cost Spirit $2.84 million, and it could be an important warning shot for Southwest, which is fighting a $48 million case over the same practice.
A United takeover would be terrible for competition, but it could solve the problem that has defined American Airlines for more than a decade: the carrier still acts like a high-cost airline trying to compete with Spirit and Frontier instead of leaning into the premium strengths of its network, people, and loyalty program. That is why American has so often underused great assets, underinvested in product, and struggled to tell employees and customers what kind of airline it actually wants to be.
Air Canada has finally pulled back the curtain on brand new cabins for its Boeing 787-10 and Airbus A321XLR, and business class seats and new cabins are only part of the story. The airline’s COO filled in what the launch materials do not: why Air Canada obsessed over design details, how it is thinking about door certification and retrofit plans, and where these cabins fit into a bigger fleet and product strategy.
Scott Kirby has reportedly pitched regulators on the idea of buying American Airlines, turning one of the strangest what-ifs in the industry into something at least serious enough to discuss in Washington. What makes the idea impossible to ignore is the backstory: Kirby was fired as American’s president, and a United takeover of the airline that cast him out would be the ultimate revenge deal — even if it would almost certainly trigger one of the fiercest antitrust fights aviation has ever seen.
Lounges got better, access expanded, and banks taught travelers to treat “free” as something to maximize at all costs — so now people wait in long lines to enter crowded rooms, hoard food, and turn what was supposed to feel premium into something closer to wartime siege.
Uber has stumbled onto a much better rental car idea by letting customers skip the counter and shuttle bus and have a car delivered to them instead. The problem is that the service (1) short-changes drivers, so they become unreliable and (2) still rides on Avis – as a result delays, uncertainty, and support failures keep it from becoming the premium product the market needs.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
