Airports still have a strange kind of magic: permission to be untethered, drink coffee too early, watch planes, people-watch, and feel the trip begin before you board. The problem is that modern airports keep burying that romance under TSA lines, crowding, lounge waitlists, bad terminals, and $18 beers — so the real luxury is finding a way to escape the chaos.
A passenger on a Shenzhen Airlines Boeing 737 noticed something wrong with the wing, photographed it, and showed the cabin crew — and after landing, the jet was pulled from service for maintenance. It appears to have been a loose or detached flap rail fairing, the kind of issue passengers may see from the cabin before anyone in the cockpit can.
American Airlines is not known for Delta-style bidding wars when flights are oversold. But on a Philadelphia–Athens flight, the airline reportedly kept raising the offer until three passengers got $4,500 each to delay their Greece trip by one day — an unusually rich payout from a carrier that normally stops bidding much earlier.
Reclining is allowed. Repeatedly body-slamming your seatback for two hours because the guy behind you is tall is not. That is what passengers say happened on a United flight from Denver to Chicago, while the 6’7″ man behind him somehow stayed completely unbothered while a flight attendant allowed it to continue.
Delta’s “eco-conscious” inflight cutbacks look even worse when the utensils start melting. Plus: Southwest’s once-unthinkable layoffs continue, American’s cabin cleaning misses another seatback surprise, and Spirit gets its own ballad.
A Qantas Boeing 787 flying from Melbourne to Dallas diverted to Tahiti after a disruptive passenger allegedly bit a flight attendant and had to be restrained with help from other passengers.
Soon your AI may book your flights. The question is whether it will find the best fare for you — or the one that pays its creator, after researchers found models could be prompted to push $1,500 sponsored flights over $500 alternatives.
AFA-CWA wants the government to force airlines to add flight attendants on widebody jets in the name of evacuation safety. But the FAA’s own data says evacuations are already safe, and risks involve passenger bags, communication, blocked exits, smoke, fire, and training — not too few flight attendants.
Hyatt just won a major appeals court fight over how its loyalty program is taxed, a ruling that could ultimately save the company $589 million, just as World of Hyatt members are about to pay more for free nights. The program is also getting a major economic boost from the new Chase deal.
The FAA has a novel way to ease the air traffic controller shortage: lower the staffing target by 2,000. Plus: a king cobra emerges from a resort toilet, Delta defends its Wi-Fi portal after Elon Musk’s Starlink jab, and American serves a very sad international meal.
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 »
