After the American Airlines earnings call, tensions rose during an all-employee meeting with questions centered on union contracts for flight attendants and reservations agents. The flight attendants union, demanding a 50% wage increase and hinting at potential strikes, criticized the company’s treatment, while CEO Robert Isom responded by emphasizing their intent to offer industry-leading compensation and benefits.
After JetBlue flight 662 from Bridgetown, Barbados arrived at New York JFK and parked at its gate, the Airbus A321 (registration N959JB) tipped back on its tail.
It appears to me that cargo was removed from the front of the aircraft first. Rear cargo was likely full and heavy.
I love to see the aspiration of offering a truly quality product across all cabins. The Airbus A380 is a fantastic aircraft from a passenger perspective. And if they’re able to launch they’ll help drive down fares across the Atlantic. But that’s not great for their business and whether they can figure out a way to minimize losses over the winter to make it to summer 2025 and beyond.
There’s one tweak to your online profile that could turbocharge your right swipes and get potential dates sliding into your DMs.
A meme for the Tinder and Hinge era started this year that you can replace the screening that used to happen through close connections with government vetting. Just demand that your dates have TSA PreCheck because the government has already done a background check.
A Southwest Airlines passenger is being kicked off of his flight – and while that’s going on he grabs another passenger’s phone – and “proceeds to make a phone call” with it while being he’s removed from the aircraft.
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
A woman flying Southwest Airlines was kicked off her flight after petting their puppy through the mesh of the puppy’s pet carrier prior to departure, according to other passengers on board.
DEA agents in disguise are hanging out in airport terminals and going from gate to gate searching passengers as they prepare to board their flights.
In the Atlanta airport they’ve been found telling passengers it’s a ‘secondary screening’ to make them believe they’re required to submit, even though as a legal matter doing so is voluntary. Passengers don’t know they can just say no. But saying no may mean being detained. And when agents find cash, they keep it.
I almost felt guilty! I skipped both the general and PreCheck queues, and no doubt many of the people in those lines would have been eligible for the Priority line. They just hadn’t noticed it.
TSA also wasn’t checking eligibility to use that line and there was no one at the entry to the line checking for it either (TSA screeners don’t care how you get to the front of the line, they do not manage the lines). Anyone could have skipped to the front without even appearing to do so.
For several years American Airlines has said that if they could get their operation running well, everything else would fall into place. But they’ve been running well in 2023 and they aren’t making money. There’s something wrong with the American Airlines business plan.
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 »
