About Gary Leff

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 »

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How Much Business Does An Airline Website Do?

man in suit looking at computer screen
Jan 15 2020

Southwest Airlines sells most of its tickets directly. It doesn’t pay third parties to distribute its flights to consumers. It was the first major airline with a website (1996) and one of the first e-commerce sites to hit a billion dollars in revenue in a year.

Major U.S. airlines are a lot larger now and most transactions have migrated online. American shared with employees last week that they hit a new milestone for revenue generated at their AA.com website.

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No One Buys Carbon Offsets: How Green Do We Really Want Air Travel To Be?

airplanes on tarmac
Jan 14 2020

Several airlines sell Catholic indulgences that go by the name carbon offsets. The idea is that they’ll funnel donations to non-profits that do good for the environment in some amount the counteract the effects of carbon attributable (on average) to a given passenger’s travel.

I’m skeptical of these measures for several reasons. Not least of which because adoption rates are infinitesimally low.

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez May Stop New York LaGuardia From Getting Train Service

Jan 14 2020

To be sure, the plan is a hair-brained one. There won’t be a direct link to the city. It’ll take passengers away from the city before sending them back to it. And it’ll add congestion to the already crowded 7 line, trading airport road congestion for public transit congestion. Complaints about the plan though merely prevent anything from being done.

We’re looking an AirTrain to Willets Point as the best available option because we’re bad at doing major infrastructure projects in this country. And Ocasio-Cortez’s opposition, four and a half years in, illustrates why that is.

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