When Bernie Sanders was running for the Democratic nomination in 2016 he charted a Boeing 767 to meet the Pope. Dinner included herb crusted lamb and fine cheeses along with lobster sliders midflight. While the democratic socialist does fly coach, even North Korea’s Air Koryo has a business class.
Senator Sanders, who honeymooned in the Soviet Union, looked sheepish flying first class on an American Airlines Embraer ERJ-175 regional jet.
American Airlines had been winding down its partnership with Alaska Airlines. American viewed Alaska Airlines as a competitor once Alaska acquired Virgin America. They emphasized the substantial route overlap rather than the unique contributions of each airline.
Now they’ve done a 180 degree turn. But for this to work for American, can Alaska have such a generous frequent flyer program?
The LAX Centurion lounge is close to completion. And, it seems, the Charlotte lounge looks close to ready as well.
Not all the letters are up on the sign above the elevator to the lounge – but this is something that would generally come last as they complete the lounge and prepare for inspections.
Ultimately this is long on narrative, and in the near-term relies mostly on buying carbon offsets which are questionable in effectiveness and limited in supply (if every company wanted to fully offset there wouldn’t be nearly enough opportunity to go around, so Delta is in some sense just bidding up the price of offsets that will be taking place anyway).
Noble goals, and surely they’ll make progress towards those goals, but the claim that they’ll be a carbon neutral airline next month is dubious to say the least.
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American Airlines has a new internal video for employees explaining that cramming more seats onto planes is good for business and good for customers too. Vasu Raja, the airline’s Senior Vice President of Network Strategy, says that densifying “both for our customers, for our team, and for the future of american airlines that’s an amazing thing.”
There are four basic arguments American makes. I don’t think they hold up well to scrutiny.
American and Alaska are partners again. The previously-announced March 1 breakup isn’t happening. Alaska Airlines is joining oneworld. And American will fly from Seattle to Bangalore, India (and Seattle – London).
United’s CFO left two years ago, put together $125 million in capital, and bought tiny XTRA Airways which had just one old Boeing 737-400 left but which had something a lot more valuable: an operating certificate. They’re already allowed to fly scheduled service.
Their first Boeing 737-800 arrives next week.
Emirates offers a great product. They have some interesting airline partnerships. And they serve a number of U.S. gateways. To make a U.S. co-brand attractive they could take a lesson from the Chase British Airways card and offer a statement credit towards taxes and fees on redemptions each year, as well as offer fast mileage-earning and progress towards elite status along with upgrades on the airline.
Boeing projected recently that re-certifying the 737 MAX will take until summer. Once it gets government approvals airlines still have to bring planes out of storage and prepare them for service, and they have to train pilots on new procedures – which will take time in part because of a limited number of available simulators.
And yet American Airlines and other carriers have the plane scheduled back into service in June. CEO Doug Parker updated employees on progress bringing the 737 MAX back into service during last week’s Crew News monthly question and answer session.
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 »
