News and notes from around the interweb:
- American Airlines flight attendants will still receive commissions for approved credit card applications under the new exclusive deal with Citibank.
— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) December 5, 2024
- Qatar Airways miles can now be converted to Marriott points at 2:1 which is a terrible deal, but notable because it means that (1) British Airways and Iberia Avios can be moved to Qatar and onto Marriott [again, don’t do it] and (2) Amex and Citi points and other hotel currencies can be moved to Qatar [and others to BA and onto Qatar] and then to Marriott, but don’t do this either.
- What’s striking to me is the great decline of the Northeast shuttle markets.
These were the 10 busiest US air routes in October 2024. pic.twitter.com/UP1muvnq3S
— Hunter (@StatisticUrban) December 2, 2024
- Qualifying as an air marshal is surprisingly easy (HT: H.G.)
- Starting next year, Air Canada basic economy fares will no longer permit a full-sized carry-on bag and passengers won’t be able to change seats out of the undesirable one assigned to them at check-in. Members with status (including Star Alliance Gold status) and co-brand cardmembers will be exempt.
- Dallas considering major changes to Love Field airport
The first layout calls for widening the concourse by 50 feet, moving pedestrian walkways, adding inbound baggage and baggage claim devices and other small changes. The second layout option involves building a second level, moving ticketing and security screening to the concourse level, expanding baggage claim in the current check-in area, and widening the concourse by 50 feet, among other small changes. The third option would move baggage dropoff to Garage A, expand baggage claim to the current check-in area, widen the concourse by 50 feet and more. The fourth option calls for moving four gates to a new south concourse, changing the existing concourse to accommodate only 16 gates, consolidated baggage claim and more, but no widening of the existing concourse.
- As expected based on a hearing in October, a judge has rejected Boeing’s 737 MAX plea deal over government insistence that a monitor of compliance be selected based on DEI criteria. That does seem to be a strange thing for the Department of Justice to have insisted on for a safety monitor role, to be honest.
Considering this costs zero to continue to promote (other than annoying everyone) it is somewhat understandable – but I wonder how many people actually sign-up for a credit card while on a flight and say “wow – this is a great idea”…. the yield must be slightly above spam email?
I have flown on JetBlue with similar rules to the new Air Canada ones in basic economy. The ticket for the Blue Basic seat was low enough that I added on a checked bag and a reserved seat assignment each way for less than the next higher priced ticket that included a reserved seat assignment and a carry-on bag for free. With the checked bag, I was able to carry more stuff. It also required boarding last but that was not a problem with no carry-on. Whether Air Canada’s rules are workable for the budget traveler depend on the difference in the ticket prices.
“Qualifying as an air marshal is surprisingly easy”.
Just fyi, these guys make it look fairly easy — but calibrate who you’re watching. This is an extremely difficult drill, widely regarded as one of the hardest of any law enforcement qual anywhere.
Has there been an increase in Amtrak ridership to make up for part of the shuttle decline? I bet many of those previous day trips BOSLGADCABOS are now Zoom calls….
The most common flight route stats are understating NY traffic by only using one airport at a time. If you layer United’s Newark to Chicago flights and Southwest’s LGA flights to Midway on there, NYC to Chicago has to be the busiest city pair for flights in the US by a sizable margin.
@Ben this year was Amtrak’s highest ridership year ever, especially on the Northeast Corridor. Weekday travel on it was up by a significant margin cpmpared to pre-covid, though that very well could also be tied to hybrid workers who moved somewhere like Philadelphia or Trenton to get cheaper housing relative to New York or DC.
And the pro-DEI idiots wonder why corporations are dropping those departments
Lame! Tired of this stupid credit card shit on airplanes can’t we have 1 thing, flying, that doesn’t have stupid commercials or sales pitches!!! Bad enough I’m on a mode of transportation made for 5 ft woman weighing 100 pounds 80lbs if you have to use lav! AA needs new management, a new board new logo and colors anyway!!!
@Bob You can on Delta. The premium airline.
Thank God! I was worried that the new Citi deal that’s much worse about signup bonus spending requirements wouldn’t pay FA’s a commission and so we might have to sleep, rest, or go about our business without hearing about how we can earn 60,000 miles for only $4,000 in spend on the PA.
The announcements are not for the frequent flyer, which I assume is what most of us are. The credit cards are a good deal for lots of people who may not be familiar with what they offer, If you’re so tired of credit card pitches, what are you doing reading this blog anyway ?
@Paul W
Only if you don’t correspondingly track SFO/OAK/SJC to LAX/BUR/SNA/ONT. If you do so, I’m not sure which will be ahead, but unlikely Chicago-NYC leads by a large margin given the number of intra-CA flights.
The NE Shuttle markets went into decline mode following 9/11. Then with the growing acceptance of remote work and video conferences and a drive to cut travel costs, demand suffers. Also, a lot of the kinds of people who used to live on these shuttle runs — I was one for a long time — shifted to preferring the train or to get down to Florida instead of suffering the TSA to end up dealing with Boston/NYC/DC more than minimally necessary unless living in the place or for personal reasons.
Captive audience that is against federal law to ignore, hawking a credit card seems ..highly illegal at most and very immoral at least. Just another reason to not fly. I don’t miss the ‘friendly’ skies. Thank the gods I don’t have to fly for work anymore.
@Bob..hates the American Flag logo. Got it Mr. Angry. Get on a flight (free with credit card sign up) fly out of the country and don’t comeback.
So AA Reservations agents used to get $2 per Barclay application while flight attendants got $50 for the Citi applications. I wonder if the new commission structure will be more equitable now.
Out of curiosity, I took one of the credit card applications. However, was stunned by the interest rate. Considering most roll a balance from month to month, no wonder the credit card insurers pay such a high Finders Fee to FAs. What a gold mine!!
As for Love Field, it’s still capped at 20 gates as per federal law.
Doesn’t matter how you scramble the terminal, little room for improvement.
I’ve heard that for the Barclays aviator card, the current sign up offer in the air (70k miles) is actually better than the best offer available elsewhere (60k miles), so sue me for supporting this but I’ll be taking an application the next time I hear the pitch.
Based on some comments… Jesus some of yall are wound up way too tight!
Regarding the NE shuttle. It doesn’t exist any longer is the answer. Does any one airline operate hourly service BOS-DCA, BOS-LGA, LGA-DCA and back? AA agents won’t put pax on the standby, at the gate, anymore. Does DL?
I refuse to participate in the credit card sales on board my flight.
Would you expect an EMT or Firefighter to makes a sales pitch during their shift?
We are inflight First Responders. Yes, we have work to do in regards to age, physical fitness, training… but stopping this cc sales nonsense is a great start.
A bit off topic – but it is my passion.
the DAL rebuild design was comical
paperpass, have you been in DAL during rush hour or a weather irrop?
there are 5 restrooms after tsa and 4 of them are at 200% capacity for 4-5 hours nonstop 3 times a day which makes basic cleaning and trash removal impossible
depending on the day of the week and the type of traveler on certain days the men’s toilets resemble 3rd-world ****holes and the floors are coated in uriine, and the women’s have lines out the door
the idiotic floorplan was designed to concentrate the maximum number of pax around the minimum number of chosen concession holders (all connected to the dallas city hall graft engine)
you need a 3-hour layover to get whataburger or chick-fil-a
the number of concessions needs to double, restroom square footage needs to increase by 500%
the gatehouses at the east and west ends of the terminal have 25% of the space they need when irrops pile up
the 2018 construction of parking garage C was stupid as it eliminated the option of using the old braniff terminal footprint for “expansion”
the east/west “angled” orientation of the 2014 new terminal was stupid – it only uses 50% of the available real estate, but prevents the use of the other 50% to fix the problems in a post-tsa configuration
a future change in the 20-gate limitation should have been contemplated in 2009 when the orientation of the 2014 rebuild was laid out – it was the cheap way out to allow the continued use of the 1958 american/green concourse
the logical fix is to extend the terminal by 50% to the west which will then allow a cascading rebuild of 2 gates at a time – increase gatehouse sizes by 200% – increase restroom size/capacity by 400% – and add 4-6 additional concessions including a 2nd whataburger and 2nd chick-fil-a
the chokepoints are not tsa, bags or the hall between tsa and the terminal
but will they follow logic? of course not – it’s dallas city hall – they destroyed the perfectly fine Legend terminal which could have been a fantastic charter facility
Considering how Boeing tried blaming the Max MCAS crashes on the race of the pilots, it’s entirely understandable that DOJ wants to ensure the safety monitor doesn’t pull the same shit.
It makes more sense to me to use my cash back card and use the money to shop for the best fare instead of looking into one airline. Anyone who gets all hot and we sputtering about DEI assumes qualifications don’t enter into the hiring decision. Tiresome people.