Monthly Archives for March 2021.
JetBlue first announced they’d be flying to London two years ago. They have a brand new Airbus A321LR with new premium seats to carry passengers across the Pond. And they have landing slots in London.
However it wasn’t the slots they’d wanted. They couldn’t get into London Heathrow, and they weren’t given enough slots to operate their desired flights into Gatwick either. Three hints from JetBlue today – since removed – suggest this may all have changed.
After the January 6th riots at the U.S. Capitol, the FAA instituted a zero tolerance policy for inflight disturbances including failure to follow airline masking rules. These were temporary rules set to expire March 30, 2021. They have now been extended indefinitely, at least until the end of the mask mandate.
Air Serbia is replacing its lone 13 year old long haul Airbus A330 aircraft with a new one – a twelve year old ex-Aeroflot A330-200 in new livery featuring Nikola Tesla on the tail.
The airline uses this aircraft to fly to New York JFK, and plans to increase its frequency from 2 to 3 times weekly and then 5 times a week over the summer. And it’s getting a new business class product.
Despite a years-long campaign against government subsidies for airlines, Delta CEO Ed Bastian thanked Congress for subsidies at the JP Morgan Industrials Conference and criticized foreign governments for not ponying up as much cash as the U.S. has given to its airlines.
Thailand is expected to roll out ‘vaccine passports’ this month, but this would only allow those who have been vaccinated against Covid-19 to reduce their required quarantine from 14 days to 7 days.
Two popular resort areas are planning to re-open fully to vaccinated tourists by October, though: Phuket and Koh Samui.
Norwegian ceased its transatlantic business and is trying to stay afloat as an intra-European carrier. But the founder of Norwegian thinks his ultra low cost long haul business model – that has never worked before – is suddenly ripe for success. And he’s trying again with Norse Atlantic Airways.
OSM Aviation, which provided staff outsourcing to Norwegian, is 53% owner of the new venture. Expect low cost labor flying 9 to 12 ex-Norwegian Boeing 787s and even planning to offer connections with Norwegian.
At the beginning of February I wrote that American Airlines has 3 corporate goals, and two of them are weird. What stood out was the carrier’s goal to “passionately drive efficiencies.”
He presented the company’s goals to ‘come out ahead’ of competitors in front of investors at the J.P. Morgan Industrials Conference.
American Airlines failed to build a mockup of its new domestic interior, and that’s how obvious mistakes were made. In CEO Doug Parker’s telling, they cared about squeezing seats onto the plane not what it was like to sit in those seats or for employees to work the new configuration.
That’s changing for upcoming retrofits and new products like the Airbus A321XLR and Boeing 787-9 new interior.
A mask resister live-blogged his experience flying American Airlines to Philadelphia and home to Manchester, New Hampshire. He drank at the airport and mocked other passengers along the way. And while he reports being successful walking through the airport and flying to Philly without a properly-worn mask, he was eventually kicked off his last flight by American for something entirely unrelated to masks – taking a seat in an empty row to promote social distancing.
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.
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 »
