Category Archives for Airlines.
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.
United is raising checked bag fees to $50 for new tickets, another $10 increase that follows JetBlue’s latest move and will likely be copied across the industry. What makes this worse than a normal fare hike is that bag fees are largely exempt from the 7.5% federal excise tax on domestic tickets, so airlines have every incentive to move more of the price into fees instead of fares.
British Airways is forcing the employee football club that has carried its name for more than four decades to rebrand, ending a link that stretches back to BOAC staff teams in 1947 and cutting off ties to its own workforce history.
Senior United flight attendants are on track to earn more than $100 an hour under the union’s newly endorsed contract — and the pay rates leaked online before most crew have even seen the full agreement. The union’s leadership voted unanimously to send the deal to members, but the biggest remaining question is what United got in return for the richer wages, boarding pay, retroactive pay, and better layover hotel protections.
An Alaska Airlines flight attendant says a midflight coffee maker failure sprayed her with scalding coffee, grounds, and boiling water, leaving permanent scars and ongoing medical treatment. She is not suing the airline, though — the lawsuit targets Stumptown Coffee, alleging the company’s packaging was defective and unsafe for aircraft use.
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 »
