As easy as most travelers have it going through immigration and customs – most U.S. citizens, anyway, I wouldn’t want to be Indian arriving in Japan – flight crew are usually given even more flexibility. That’s one reason why flight crew make attractive smugglers.
Airline employees aren’t always given a free pass, though.
Piedmont Airlines, an American Eagle carrier owned by American Airlines, told pilots they needed to wait to get vaccinated against Covid-19 because of increasing passenger demand for flights. Airlines argued that huge federal subsidies were necessary ‘to be ready’ for flying to return. Even at the absolute peak of flying days demand has been off at least 30% compared to before the pandemic. Yet despite subsidies, while airlines have pocketed the cash and paid employees as well, they haven’t kept those employees trained and ready to fly. So American’s subsidiary told pilots to delay vaccinations in order to work. In the memo sent last Wednesday, Piedmont Airlines Chief Pilot John Pursell told the regional carrier’s 500 pilots, “Piedmont will be unable to release any additional pilots for COVID vaccination for the weekend of March 19-21…
What Crandall intuitively understands is that passenger airlines are a low margin business (outside of areas where government limits competition). As a result it’s crucial to guard against cost disease and expense creep. He used sometimes apocryphal stories to make his point about attention to detail to keep costs low without noticeably sacrificing quality.
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.
French long haul low cost airline French Bee plans to outfit two new Airbus A350s they’ll take delivery of this year with 488 seats, about 50% more seats than most airlines put on the plane. This plan is likely to fail. Here’s why low cost carriers work on short flights, but fail when trying to fly long haul.
The Westin Fort Lauderdale Beach Resort has been charging guests a 2% fee for paying their bills by credit card.
The Hopper app is a flight and hotel booking tool that helps you find the best prices, including making predictions about when to buy to get the best deal. Capital One is leading a $170 million funding round for Hopper, and partnering with them to launch a new travel portal for cardmembers.
Here’s what’s wrong with most online booking tools, and how Capital One and Hopper could beat them.
The ‘No Fly List’ is the government’s pre-crime profiling that keeps people off of U.S. airlines and airlines flying to the U.S. without having been convicted or even charged with a crime.
It’s a secret list that people haven’t been entitled to know how they got on or to confront the evidence relied upon to put them on it. Legally there is very little recourse, and when challenged the government claims ‘state secrets.’
Southwest Airlines has been boarding 10 passengers at a time, instead of lining up 30 people, throughout the pandemic.
The carrier, which does not pre-assign seats and lets customers pick once they’re on board – so boarding position determines the seat you get – has reverted to its traditional boarding process. Better get that vaccine jab quickly!
Most people use sites like Expedia or Kayak to compare options because they don’t start off knowing they want to fly American Airlines or United. They find the schedule and price they’re looking for, and then book what looks best.
While it can be useful for the average consumer to search flights with Expedia or the like, it’s not actually a good idea to buy travel from them unless they are able to construct complicated itineraries at a lower price than booking directly. These two tweets show why.
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 »
