Through August 31 Frontier Airlines is offering customers the option of paying for an empty middle seat, priced at $39. This is being compared to other airlines blocking middle seats for free. However that’s not a fair comparison. And all of the criticism over the airline for ‘charging for safety’ makes no sense.
Despite getting billions in federal aid precisely to ensure that employees do not see layoffs or a reduction in pay, United Airlines is reducing pay for non-union staff, including administrative help, by enforcing unpaid vacation time. They’re also planning to lay off at least 30% of this group October 1, as soon as CARES Act restrictions lift – and they’ve adopted a new policy that says any of these employees laid off will receive zero severance.
Normally I’m against vehicular theft. I imagine reduced traffic from the coronavirus pandemic made the trip somewhat safer. Ultimately I feel like a boy this industrious needs to be encouraged, not punished.
This is exactly why Taiwan is considering renaming China Airlines. A pro-Trump campaign ad attacks former Vice President Joe Biden for failing to support ban on travel from China with a China Airlines plane beside Biden.
Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly says it is safe to fly again, “We’re doing everything possible to encourage people to come back and fly.”
I’m going to offer what I hope is a slightly more limited and nuanced take, that it is safe for some people to plan now to travel again during the months of June, July and August. This is speculative, but sums up my currently thinking about where we stand.
With airlines beginning to require passengers to wear face masks on board, we’re about to see a new conflict, because people are just as awful as they used to be. It’s just that there are fewer of them flying.
When American Airlines debated internally whether to require passengers to wear masks, or merely encourage them to (including by providing the masks), the argument that ultimately gave way to a mandate was that cabin crew would be in a position of having to enforce the new rules. And there are always going to be exceptions, which creates grey areas and opportunities for conflict.
When planes pull up to the gate passengers unbuckle their seat belts, not waiting for the captain to turn off the seat belt sign. Then everyone begins to jump up, and get into the aisle. Everyone crames body-to-body in the aisle. They’ve been cramped into airline seats for the duration of the flight, and strangely decide to cramp themselves even closer together in the aisle.
United Airlines has a new approach to deplaning that starts today, that they hope will bring social distancing to get off the plane that way that airlines are trying to implement for boarding and blocking of middle seats.
Ben Baldanza, who used to be CEO of Spirit Airlines, now has a podcast. He told a story about when he ran marketing for US Airways and a rental car company in Greensboro, North Carolina wanted to buy frequent flyer miles to reward their customers for throwaway ticketing on his airline.
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There’s no longer a single country that doesn’t have a restriction on arriving passengers of some kind. Countries that don’t have a major coronavirus problem don’t want one. When and how will restrictions lift? Like most of what we know about coronavirus, heterogeneity rules.
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 »
