Monthly Archives

Monthly Archives for June 2019.

Premium Cabin Airline Seats Haven’t Improved in 30 Years

by Gary Leff

airplane seats
Jun 15 2019

Thirty years ago airlines offered a mostly flat comfortable seat at the front of the plane with upgraded dining. They called it first class. They also offered a middle cabin featuring recliners and 38 to 40 inches between seats, along with upgraded privileges like priority boarding. They called it business class.

Today airlines offer mostly flat seating up front with upgraded dining. They call it business class. They offer a middle cabin featuring recliners and 38 to 40 inches between seats, along with upgraded privileges like priority boarding. They call it premium economy.

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Fare Alert: Summer and Holiday Business Class to Europe From $1835 Roundtrip

by Gary Leff

airline seats
Jun 15 2019

American Airlines is running all of its Europe and deep South America flights from New York JFK with Boeing 777s. That’s too much capacity even for a joint venture partner’s hub like Madrid (Iberia). They really ought to be basing some smaller aircraft, like Boeing 787s, out of New York and serving more destinations profitably.

During peak summer months and during fall and winter holidays there’s often fare compression, business class tickets go down in price (especially for restricted fares that leisure flyers can buy) while coach gets more expensive. We’re certainly seeing that on American’s New York JFK – Madrid route, where they’re discounting business class. For about the same money you can also fly their partner Iberia’s business class non-stop as well.

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Korean Air Lets You Pick First Class Seats When Flying Business Class (Airbus A330, Boeing 777-300)

by Gary Leff

flight attendant showing phone
Jun 15 2019

A little over a month ago we learned that Korean Air would be dropping first class from many of its routes.

While Korean Air’s first class lags in quality behind many other Asian carriers, I’ve especially liked that I could fly to Asia in first class and connect onward in first class as well because much of their intra-Asia route network offered a first class cabin.

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Video of American Airlines Supervisor Yelling at a Mechanic Was Leaked with an Agenda

by Gary Leff

american workers are worth it poster
Jun 14 2019

The viral video of an American Airlines employee yelling at one of their mechanics turns out to be from back in November.

This not safe for work video is a snippet of a supervisor yelling at a mechanic over writing up items on an aircraft and then not fixing them, because the mechanic’s shift was apparently over. I didn’t cover the video when it was making the rounds at the beginning of the week because there just wasn’t enough context around it. Now we know the story.

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I’m Going to Rent My House to My Wife and Earn 30,000 British Airways Miles

by Gary Leff

airbnb mobile
Jun 14 2019

What if you want to earn the miles but don’t want someone sleeping in your bed and doing goodness knows what else in your home? Maybe I shouldn’t literally list my home and have my wife rent it, we have the same last name, but her parents have a different last name. 30,000 Avios for the fees associated with a one night rental is a pretty good deal.

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52 Year Old New Jersey Woman Was Supplying Parts to Iran’s Airlines

by Gary Leff

mahan air plane
Jun 14 2019

At the end of the Obama administration significant sanctions on Iran were lifted. We started to see a flurry of economic activity including a deal to buy 80 Boeing aircraft. There was even talk of Iran Air breathing life into the Airbus A380 program. Those hopes were dashed with the re-introduction of sanctions by the current administration.

Yet Iran commercial aviation managed to keep to the skies, in part because of ‘smuggling’ of aircraft parts into the country.

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Delta Destroys Priceless Cultural Artifacts After Forcing Woman to Gate Check Her Bag

by Gary Leff

delta plane
Jun 13 2019

We all know the usual tropes, like ‘there are only two kinds of luggage: carry on and lost’ and that someone who checks a bag for a trip every week is spending at least 2 days a year at baggage claim. Checking bags is something you want to avoid if you possibly can.

Here’s how to avoid being forced to gate check a bag when the contents inside are too important to risk.

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