Monthly Archives for May 2023.
It’s not easy to catch a rideshare in many parts of flyover country. One man in the part of Southern Illinois that’s known as “Little Egypt” found himself without a ride to the airport so he stole a backhoe for the 10 mile drive to the airport.
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.
A passenger managed to open the emergency exit door of Asiana flight 8124 on Friday as the 205-mile overwater domestic flight from Jeju to Daegu, South Korea was landing and the aircraft was about 820 feet above the ground.
There were 194 passengers on board the Airbus A321. Six were hospitalized on arrival. The man, in his 30s, reported tried to jump out of the aircraft.
The point in a celebrity campaign is to associate the brand with something. At its worst, the celebrity’s gravitas rubs off, or their likeability. It’s good enough for this person, I’m sure to like it!
But at its best – and nobody does celebrity advertising like Nike – it creates a brand purpose that makes the product a celebrity. Nike celebrates the athletes they have endorsement deals with. They celebrate greatness in sport. And though they’re selling a commodity (shoes, but in many ways airplane seats are similar) they become something consumers want an attachment to as a result.
On May 19, a United Airlines flight was forced to abort landing in order to avoid a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 on the runway. Then an Alaska Airlines jet aborted its landing, too.
Air traffic control called out the Southwest pilot – “you shouldn’t be on the runway.”
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.
Disappearing planes, and no clear answers, just isn’t something that happens in aviation. There hadn’t been a single commercial aircraft go missing in the prior 13 years. Nearly all the aircraft that have disappeared have been probable crashes. Perhaps surprisingly commercial planes simply aren’t ever stolen. At least they almost never are.
Yet a Boeing 727 disappeared on May 25, 2003 from the international airport in Luanda, Angola. The plane used to belong to American Airlines. It was never found.
It’s been five months since Southwest Airlines experienced an unprecedented meltdown. They initially blamed weather, but they were cancelling over 60% of their flights a day even while other airlines throughout the country were operating normally. They found themselves short-staffed, and without the systems to recover. Their phone system broke. And they had to rebuild schedules manually, getting in touch with crews one at a time. And this went on for a week.
Now the airline is headed into summer – peak travel – so observers both inside and outside the company are asking whether they’re ready.
The Department of Justice successfully sued in District Court to block American Airlines and JetBlue from continuing to cooperate in their ‘Northeast Alliance’ where they divvied up which carrier flew to which city, and shared revenue.
The judge’s decision cites some pretty interesting coordination over pricing that happens in the airline industry prior to and outside of this alliance. Competitors talking about pricing, and in particular how to raise prices, is forbidden, and yet they seem to do it in plain sight without actually saying “let’s do the crime” so that they can get away with it.
The brand new St. Regis Chicago wasn’t offering Marriott Bonvoy Platinum members breakfast as they’re required to. They claimed that their restaurant was operated by a third party, and this got them out of the obligation. This all was addressed quickly, in just a couple of days.
In the meantime, however, there were a flood of consumer reviews of the property on TripAdvisor – most of which were very bad (and likely fake).
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 »
