Monthly Archives for July 2024.
Delta and United have suspended service to Tel Aviv, in anticipation of an escalation in hostilities between Israel and Iran, Hezbollah, and other Iranian-backed groups after Israel struck Hamas’s Ismail Haniyeh while at his home in Tehran.
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 hasn’t been a low fare airline in a long time and they are no longer a low cost airline. New federal rules will make Southwest look cheaper at the same price. That’s an underrated ace in the airline’s hole and a reason they’ll want their fares to show wherever people search for airfare. There’s no more need to hide the comparison, when people see only price.
One reasonable strategy is to just lean into discounted first class buy up offers. Pay for coach, even if you want first. Then wait for an upgrade offer. If you don’t get one, cancel the ticket and as long as you didn’t buy a basic economy fare just use the flight credit to buy the first class seat you wanted. But you’ll often wind up sitting up front for much less.
In a presentation to employees following the airline’s second quarter earnings call on Thursday, a recording of which was reviewed by View From The Wing, employees were told that American should be performing financially like United and Delta, but CEO Isom emphasized that no airline is better at being careful with a dollar than American.
And, he says, that’s even more important – it’s easier to fix revenue than to fix an airline that spends too much.
It’s a complicated, complicated world that just got a little simpler because Cosmopolitan’s own Identity program has been merged into MGM Rewards.
JetBlue has been trying to retool its business, which has underperformed for 15 years but finally cost its Chief Executive his job. Now they’ve been looking for revenue anywhere they can find it (such as continuing to lead the industry in checked bag fee increases) while dropping unprofitable routes out of places like Los Angeles and scaling back loss-making adventures in Europe.
The big reveal was that they will be reducing plans to buy planes, deferring orders past 2030. And without new A321XLRs coming this decade that means a lot less Europe ahead than in earlier plans and a longer way to a fleet refresh.
This is a change – amounting to “B-scale” work rules – that was demanded by the union. And it’s going to make the flight attendant career at American Airlines much less appealing to anyone considering it in the future.
Consumers haven’t wanted what Spirit and Frontier have been selling. Those airlines have struggled. They’ve responded by shifting the routes that they fly, and the products they sell. Frontier has upended its fares and now sells a premium product with both extra legroom and blocked middle seats. Now Spirit is moving in that same direction.
DOT should certainly enforce refunds for services charged but not provided. But they shouldn’t lock airlines and airfare search sites into displaying specific charges in a standardized way, the same everywhere. We should be encouraging competition in meeting consumer needs, not making airline sites and Expedia displays the same forever. It’s not only seat and bag fees that matter – and even those don’t always matter!
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 »
