Monthly Archives for July 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.
Washington’s National Airport is finally about to get an American Express Centurion lounge, based on photos showing construction largely complete and furnishing laid out in the space.
What they lack is – in some sense – fixable by a management who sweats the small stuff to deliver an outstanding customer experience and who articulates a vision that aligns employees with a shared goal to deliver on that experience.
There are (13) things that I believe about American Airlines, from customer experience to business strategy, and they help explain both the outsized potential of this airline to be great and the decisions holding them back.
A woman found herself in the middle of somebody else’s travel hack. She was assigned a middle seat on her flight, between a couple who had booked the aisle and window seat in the same row.
They didn’t offer to trade. So the woman was stuck sitting between a couple – and they talked to each other throughout the flight, and passed food and drinks back and forth. They did this over the middle seat passenger’s laptop.
A passenger on a Southwest Airlines flight fsnapped a photo of an entire row of seats blocked off using a neck pillow and two bags. The passenger who did it wasn’t even seated in the row but nearby, saving those seats for family.
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.
This is a flight departing from California but it could be any – or every – Spirit Airlines flight as a an agent for the airline announces, “Everybody’s attention right now! Right now! Alright, now, [do you all] wanna get on this flight or not?”
She continues her rant to passengers waiting for their flight to Las Vegas, “everyone’s gonna shut up and we’re gonna say this once, and we’ll only gonna say this again ’cause we’re frustrated as hell!” Maybe she’s referring to the flight delay or maybe she’s referring to all of the airline’s fees. Either way, the crowd erupts!
November 1 – 3 is this year’s ZorkFest in Las Vegas. I spoke there last year and had a great time. It was in Reno, so a bit less convenient, but still a beautiful setting (and sessions were held in what was once the suite were a certain person who later became President would first interact with a porn star who later became a household name).
This year’s event will be far less notorious, but certainly classic Vegas – hosted at the Horseshoe which was the original MGM Grand.
Each Saturday morning Adrian Waltz pulls new flights added and flights removed from airline schedules and this week he found something really interesting from American Airlines.
Video from inside the cabin shows a flight attendant yelling at passengers not to take their carry-on bags, and even arguing with a passenger over whether or not he needed to go at all. Passengers can be seen remaining seated. Overhead bins are open. And you can even see people still reaching in to grab their bags, even as they’re being told not to – and to get off the plane! This is literally insane.
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 »
