Monthly Archives for August 2020.
Presidential campaigns traditionally have planes. But this year Joe Biden is going without one since he won’t leave his basement won’t be traveling much for in-person events during the pandemic.
Biden will be saying Trump events are “gambling with American lives for his own political gain.” Yet he hasn’t actually ruled out getting a plane and doing events later “if individual states change their guidelines.”
Airlines and their unions have asked for a ‘clean extension’ of the payroll support money, another $25 billion. However if that’s to save 75,000 jobs through March 31, 2021 that amounts to $333,333 per job and come April 1 we’ll see job losses again (when it’s not election season).
Seriously, has anybody actually done the math here?
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
I can sort of understand (but not condone) creepy dudes who want to make attractive passengers climb over them, or who want to climb over attractive passengers. But I don’t even have a theory to explain why people would do this to me?
Air Canada Aeroplan is introducing family pooling as part of their new frequent flyer program launch in November. Aeroplan will allow up to 8 people to share their miles at no cost. Many programs charge a penny a mile to accomplish something similar.
Some of you are going to be tempted to abuse this. There’s a simple reason not to try.
A ‘clean extension’ of the CARES Act means another $5.8 billion for American, a lot more money than they’d save with furloughs, and then we’ll be back to laying off employees again April 1 when it’s no longer election season.
Matthew Klint asks if American’s plan to drop ‘up to 30 cities’ without CARES Act money is ‘just a ruse’. It’s not, though the timing of leaking the story to Leslie Josephs was clearly designed as a tactic to push for a second government bailout.
Whenever I fly through or out of LAX I run into celebrities. And the thing is there must be more of them than I realize, because I don’t know who most people that are conventionally famous even are. I’ve run into Billy Crystal at TSA screening and then the terminal 4 Admirals Club, Reba McEntire in the Admirals Club too, and Randy Jackson escorting a child star in first class across the aisle to name just a few.
Airline employees, either more culturally aware than I am or just with access to a flight manifest, must find this an every day occurrence. So a Los Angeles-based airline customer service agent with a Tik Tok account is a dangerous thing when she decides to dish on the celebrities she’s met at the airport.
Air India fired 48 pilots effective Thursday at midnight. The pilots union says the move is illegal. Air India says they’re relying on a Supreme Court ruling from last year that allows the move.
Apart from Indian labor law what’s striking about the story though is that after the pilots were terminated effective August 13, one of them continued to fly passengers.
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
There’s an irrational belief that all travel is bad, even if holders of that belief cannot explain why all travel increases spread of Covid-19. And there’s a deep recession, and many people are hurting. So proponents of solidarity suggest everyone should suffer, or at least be shamed for not suffering.
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 »
