News and notes from around the interweb:

• American Airlines flight attendants are suing the airline because other employees were mean to them on personal social media accounts. They say American has a policy against this but isn’t enforcing the policy. The flight attendants were involved in union activities, and it used to be that such things escalated into serious violence. Now it’s cyberbullying it seems. (HT: Ken A.)

  In the lawsuit, Medlin, a flight attendant since 2000, said the online harassment started after she resigned from a union position. A group of male flight attendants based in Philadelphia started harassing her on social media, including Facebook, with insulting names such as “sow,” she maintains in the suit.

  The other plaintiff, a Pennsylvania-based flight attendant named Melissa Chinery, said she became the target of harassment in 2014, when she announced that she was running for a union position. Like Medlin, Chinery said she was subjected to a harassment campaign by male flight attendants, including names such as “flipper,” a synomym for prostitute, as well as “c***,” according to the lawsuit.

• The Platinum Card by American Express gets you National Car Rental’s ‘Executive’ status. And National is now putting BMW X3 SUVs in the Emerald Aisle of some airport locations, so book a midsize and your status lets you drive one of these away through May 31. After that they’ll make these BMW SUVs available as a $25 per day upgrade.

  
  Credit: BMW

• Fatal Plane Crash Could Have Been Averted — But Pilots Opted Against Emergency Landing Because They Feared Attracting Attention of Regulators

  [T]he MD-83 did not return to Abuja, and overflew several alternate airports – including Akure and Ibadan – where an emergency landing could have been made.

  “At one time the pilot asserted that the aircraft could not quit on them,” says the inquiry into the 3 June 2012 crash. “At another time, the captain said declaring an emergency would make [the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority] come after them.

  “The delay to declare an emergency due to unexplained fear of the regulatory body compounded their problems.

• Qatar Airways CEO Crazy Akbar al Baker says long haul low cost carriers will fail

• Get 100 miles for linking your United co-brand credit card to help the Red Cross (HT: Dan’s Deals)

  

  United will donate 100 miles for every $1000 you spend through April 15. It costs you nothing and you get 100 miles just for doing it.

• In Australia retailers used government to cram down the fees that credit card companies were allowed to charge for processing transactions. Now we’re seeing cutbacks to credit card rewards programs. That’s the future anyway as technology competes down interchange rates so we’ll eventually see this happen in the U.S. even if it’s not the result of regulation.

• After my post identifying a problem with customers who did not buy Basic Economy fares getting re-booked into Basic Economy when their flights cancelled, American shared the steps they’re taking to avoid this going forward:

  We apologize to the customers who have been affected. To make sure this situation doesn’t happen again, we have closed B inventory on non-Basic Economy routes to prevent accidental re-booking in this fare class. Also, we will follow up on previous internal communications with new reminders that only customers who purchased Basic Economy should be re-accommodated on B tickets, to make sure that customers are rebooked in the appropriate class of service.