Monthly Archives for June 2023.
Normally when you enter a jet bridge you’re taken to your aircraft. And then on the other end of the journey the jet bridge takes you into the terminal. At Minneapolis – St. Paul airport gate G13, in what seems like some sort of infinite regress, the jet bridge will simply take you to… another jet bridge.
The MSP airport shared time lapse video of crew “marrying” two jet bridges.
A U.S. partner is helpful to El Al, however, in earning connecting business for its flights rather than just origin and destination traffic from cities with heavy travel to and from Israel. The U.S. market is important for El Al, and finally having a partner here after 9 years is significant for them.
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.
Southwest Airlines is a government contractor. That imposes myriad rules. One of those rules now involves use of TikTok. As a result, starting today, Southwest Airlines prohibits use of TikTok on its network. However the airline will still continue to engage customers over TikTok – they’ll just require employees to use personal devices to do it.
Before the pandemic the American Airlines co-brand portfolio had the largest charge volume, but American, United and Delta were all over $100 billion annually. Delta now says they’re “approaching 1% of U.S. GDP” on their co-brand cards, which would be ~ $255 billion.
Inflation helps, but it’s reasonable to think they’re suggesting they’re around $200 billion in annual charge volume on Delta Amex cards. Even if American and United are lagging Delta’s growth surely then these three airline co-brands are now taking a slice out of more than 2% of U.S. GDP.
Delta Air Lines flight 1092 from Atlanta to Charlotte just successfully landed without its nose gear. Passengers safely deplaned the aircraft and made it to the terminal by bus.
After circling the airport a couple of times, trying to address the malfunctioning landing gear, the plane made it down onto runway 36 at around 8:40 a.m. The runway is currently closed.
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.
Monday night’s Spirit Airlines flight 3902 from Atlanta to Detroit was delayed five hours. After a significant mechanical delay, passengers “were eventually told they could board around 10:15 p.m.” and around 15 did indeed board.
However “rowdy travelers caused another delay” and Spirit gate agents shut the boarding doors so that “nobody else could board.”
On Sunday night flying in the Northeast was a mess. Flights out of the three DC-area airports were paused while the FAA’s air traffic control organization suffered an equipment failure at Potomac TRACON. Flights resumed shortly after 7 p.m. Eastern time, but there was a backlog to clear. Some flights cancelled, for instance as crew exceeded their maximum duty hours.
Royal Air Maroc flies Washington Dulles to Casablanca five days a week using a Boeing 787-8. After several hours staff hadn’t communicated at all with passengers. Then they finally cancelled the flight. And the passengers went into revolt. Staff fled for their safety.
This win really does belong to the PR folks. While the publication doesn’t reveal its methodology, any reasonable ‘Best CEO’ evaluation has to look at the individual’s value add against the assets they’re working with.
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 »
