American Airlines CEO Robert Isom just gave investors an unusually direct promise about AAdvantage: he said the airline intends to keep its miles more valuable for travel than competing programs. That matters because loyalty is American’s biggest profit engine, and Isom is effectively arguing that the airline will grow credit card revenue by making AAdvantage more attractive to customers — not by gutting redemption value.
The line to get into the Delta Sky Clubs in Orlando and New York LaGuardia stretch through the terminal. Delta admits its pilot contract has made meltdown recovery harder, American adds premium economy hot entree pre-orders on some long routes, and politicians still want airport rules that do not apply to them.
Delta Flight 69 from Seattle to Taipei was forced to divert to Anchorage after a passenger allegedly grabbed a flight attendant, used the N-word, and threatened to beat him up after landing. What began as an argument over whether a lavatory was occupied escalated into a level-three onboard disturbance serious enough to lock down the cockpit, divert an Airbus A350 heavy with fuel, and end with the passenger in federal custody.
BA crew are notorious for pushing beyond the boundaries of cheekiness and into cheekiness.
JetBlue just lost an early fight in a case testing where federal aviation law ends and state negligence law begins. A judge let a passenger’s claims move forward after she said she was injured while getting off a flight, keeping alive the argument that once a plane reaches the gate and deplaning begins, airlines may no longer be protected by an exclusively federal standard.
Everyone debates which credit card is “best,” but most people are solving the wrong problem. This simple framework cuts through the noise, showing how to decide which card actually fits your spending, benefits, and goals.
For months, United CEO Scott Kirby has been publicly portraying American Airlines as a huge money loser in Chicago, framing O’Hare as a battleground his airline could dominate. Now American’s CFO is finally answering back — and his argument is that Kirby is using the wrong profit measure, because by the metrics that actually drive decisions, Chicago O’Hare is not a drag on the airline at all.
Southwest CEO Bob Jordan says his top travel rule is never checking a bag, which is a revealing thing to hear from the head of an airline that’s now charging for checked bags.
Also, Delta is tightening its bag guarantee, JetBlue is adding more domestic first class seats, Hyatt is chasing growth through lower-end conversions.
The people killed in the Boeing 737 MAX crashes were the real victims. But after years of litigation, one of the strongest cases still moving forward is a shareholder fraud suit — raising the uncomfortable possibility that the biggest courtroom payday from the disaster could go not to passengers or their families, but to investors who say Boeing misled the market.
American Airlines has opened one of the best systemwide upgrade opportunities it has offered in years: buy premium economy, request the upgrade by Wednesday night, and business class can clear as long as a seat is still for sale. That makes this promotion unusually broad and unusually valuable, because it bypasses the normal scarcity of upgrade inventory and turns a hard-to-use benefit into confirmed long-haul business class for August travel.
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 »
