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 »

More articles by Gary Leff »

Is the Port Authority of New York New Jersey Stealing Money from Newark Airport (and United)?

by Gary Leff

united-plane
May 14 2019

Back in September United threatened to pull out of Newark over $20 million in fuel taxes targeted at its operations. They were never going to leave, but made their (perfectly reasonable) point about New Jersey trying to extract revenue from just them.

United has also complained that Newark airport is overcharging them, and the FAA agrees. This past fall the FAA found that the Port Authority of New York New Jersey which manages the airport “routinely diverted airport revenue to non-airport activities.” There’s a law that lets them do this, but the airport appears to be going well beyond it.

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Flight Attendant Sues Qantas, Says Airline Should Have Provided Training on How to Use Stairs

by Gary Leff

qantasplane
May 13 2019

In 1984 a California man was tossing his toddler up and down in his living room. The kid loved it, and the father went higher and higher. Until the kid’s head hit the ceiling fan. Which was on. And the man sued the ceiling fan manufacturer for failing to warn him that walking with a child underneath a ceiling fan could be dangerous.

In that vein a Qantas flight attendant is now suing the airline after slipping on air stairs, saying the Australian carrier should have provided training on how to use stairs.

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The Worst Airline in America Hasn’t Shown Up at One Airport in Weeks, and No One Knows Why

by Gary Leff

via air plane
May 13 2019

Last summer I found that the worst airline in America, Via Air had an F-rating from the Better Business Bureau and 71% of their TripAdvisor reviews were poor or terrible, compared to 27% for Allegiant, 26% for United and 6% for Southwest.

Now, though, they aren’t just stranding customers. Their cutting flights. And they haven’t even shown up at one airport — and is ducking the airport’s calls and emails trying to find out why.

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Qantas Chartering an A380 ‘Points Plane’ for Redemptions to Tokyo

by Gary Leff

plane water salute
May 13 2019

Qantas needs to position an Airbus A380 to Tokyo for a charter flight and so it’s making at A380 available to frequent flyers for redemption. All seats on the aircraft will be available for saver redemption.

This flight is an interesting frequent flyer concept — and one that’s been done by other airlines before and which will be done by others again.

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Amazing Footage: Regional Jet Landed This Morning Without Its Nose Gear, Everyone Safe

by Gary Leff

myanmar plane crash
May 12 2019

Myanmar National Airlines flight UB103 from Yangon to Mandalay arrived on time Sunday morning — but the nose gear on the Embraer ERJ-190 failed to extend.

After a go-around and a failed attempt at an alternate gear extension plane entered a holding pattern to burn off fuel and then the crew executed a ‘nose up’ landing, where they keep the plane’s nose up as long as they can “bringing the aircraft to a halt on the runway on both main gear struts and the nose of the aircraft.”

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