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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Less Traffic, Higher Fares

Earlier this month, I said that military action against Iraq would not necessarily lower air fares — at least not immediately. Now Reuters is reporting on fare increases for international premium class travel. This isn’t surprising, really. Anyone flying internationally now is probably doing so because they really need to and so are among the least price-sensitive consumers. Lower air traffic eventually translates into lower fares, but in the short-term, just like after 9/11, some fares may actually go up.

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The socio-political implications of a Douglas DC-3

A Cuban plane was hijacked and diverted to Florida late Wednesday night. There’s nothing too surprising about that, given current information. I wouldn’t want to live in Cuba either. But for anyone who ever questions just how backward Cuba is, note this one salient point about the story — the plane was a DC-3, still in regular operation in Cuba, sixty-seven years after it was first introduced.

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Why Rail Transit Systems Fail

Rail transit only makes sense in the largest cities, with concentrated downtown districts. Most rail transit is built to serve the downtown business districts in cities. But the days when downtowns functioned as the primary centers of employment are long gone. Since about 1955, when people and office equipment began taking up more space, most new jobs have been created in industrial parks and small office parks–areas outside of downtown. Now, less than 10 percent of the nation’s employment in metropolitan areas is located in the old central business districts. So for more than 90 percent of commuters, rail transit isn’t an option. Yet this fact is not an argument for extending rail transit into the suburbs. Employment outside of downtown areas is spread too thin to support rail transit. And any system serving the…

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