Monthly Archives for January 2024.
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.
Katie Mox of CBS Sports landed in Fort Lauderdale and collected her checked bags off a Delta flight. When she arrived at her hotel she found that everything inside the bag was still inside – except for all of her underwear. They didn’t take her jewelry – just her bras and panties.
ATC says “we are dispatching emergency services to your location now.” And the pilot gives their location as “Across from the Wendy’s and Aldi’s.”
When JetBlue lost, their stock soared. This is a bad deal for JetBlue shareholders, with the airline overpaying ($3.8 billion) for access to planes and pilots, and taking on the distractions, costs, and capital expenses of a merger and retrofit of Spirit Airlines aircraft. The federal government was doing them a favor by suing to block the deal.
When business class mistake fares from 1,500 to 13,500 points one way were recently offered, Flying Blue considered honoring the deal – it wouldn’t have cost that much – but they were afraid of the precedent.
Southern Airways Express flight 246 took off from Washington Dulles airport this afternoon at around 12:45 p.m. from runway 30. Two minutes later the Cessna 208B Grand Caravan landed on the Loudoun County Parkway. Two pilots and five passengers were on board, and all are reported safe. Dulles airport remains open.
When Argentina’s new President Javiar Milei flew to Davos on Lufthansa, I shared the photo of him in the airline’s business class cabin that I first saw on social media. I assumed he flew business class – not private, or first class. That seemed reasonable and importantly symbolic. It turns out that he flew coach.
When Milei arrived at the World Economic Forum he had a big stage. And he unleashed on that crowd for its self-congratulations while their prescriptions lead to poverty for the world.
Currently up to one in five passengers flying out of airports near the U.S. southern border appear to be migrants. Based on the difference between arrivals and departures each month from specific airports, people are leaving and not coming back.
On Thursday night an Atlas Air Boeing 747-8 cargo plane took off from Miami heading towards San Juan. As it climbed through 2,000 feet from runway 9, the plane’s number two engine caught fire. The plane returned to the airport and taxied to the apron under its own power. According to the FAA, “Inspection revealed a softball size hole above #2 engine.”
Four years ago, early in the pandemic, I wrote that business travel would never return to the way that it was in the Before Times. There would still be business trips, but the managed travel consultant class wouldn’t travel like they used to.
Some people thought this was true because of some sort of persistent concern about health. That was the Bill Gates take. But it seemed to me that something fundamental was going on that would last past lockdowns.
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 »
