Category Archives for Airlines.
Patent Armory has sued JSX over the software that routes customer service calls, the latest move from a plaintiff that has filed more than 90 patent cases in just three years. One of the two patents it is asserting has already expired, and a similar suit it brought against Delta lasted only about three months before being voluntarily dismissed.
An Alaska Airlines flight attendant was photographed wearing an “ICE OUT” pin while working a recent flight, injecting a charged immigration slogan into one of the few places passengers cannot simply walk away. Whatever someone thinks about immigration enforcement, the cabin is a bad place for crew political messaging: the power imbalance is real, the slogan flattens a complicated issue, and the airline’s brand winds up carrying an employee’s personal politics.
American Airlines current CEO Robert Isom and former CEO Doug Parker were reportedly on the same Paris-to-DFW flight Sunday, returning with family and “Gucci shopping bags in hand” — while Isom is currently embattled over the carrier’s poor financial performance.
Airlines keep telling passengers the overhead bins are full, then sending them onto planes where empty space is still sitting open above the seats.
It is one of the fastest ways to make customers furious, and it happens for a simple reason: gate agents are under pressure to avoid even minor delays, so they often start forcing carry-ons into the hold before the bins are actually full.
Airline upgrade advice never stops circulating, even though much of it is nonsense. From dressing nicely to hinting at a special occasion, travelers keep hearing that the right attitude or outfit can unlock first class. In reality, upgrades mostly go to elite status, paid offers, and airline-controlled systems — not to whoever looks most deserving at the gate.
United’s new tentative agreement really does deliver what the union is selling on the headline items: roughly 30% higher base pay, 50% boarding pay, a richer 401(k) match, and meaningfully better hotel language. But after reading all 425 pages, the fuller story is that the gains come with real tradeoffs too — profit sharing still trails Delta and American, the retro pay is not truly full retro, and the union gave up the restriction that had blocked United from owning a regional airline without using mainline flight attendants.
Air India has done something frequent flyer programs almost never do: it made many of its own award tickets cheaper, with especially big gains in economy and meaningful reductions on North America business class. Lowest-price awards also no longer need to be booked as far in advance, making the cheaper pricing easier to actually use.
A Muslim family says Delta kicked them off a flight home from Atlanta to Baltimore because of who they were — but an appeals court ruled they cannot pursue the case at all because no one suffered bodily injury.
United has finally done what it spent the past year signaling: the cheapest Polaris and premium economy fares now come with coach-style restrictions, including paid seat selection, no changes, and — in basic business — no Polaris lounge access. This is being sold as new “fare families,” but the real story is simpler: United is making its cheapest premium tickets worse, not meaningfully cheaper.
Air Peace says it will restart once-monthly Boeing 777 flights from Lagos to Antigua and Barbados starting May 24 — a schedule that doesn’t work for vacations, business trips, or even roundtrips. And when a veteran airline executive pointed that out, the carrier responded with legal threats.
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 »
