Category Archives for Airlines.
Southwest used to give everyone free bags and open seating. Now those perks increasingly belong to elites — and Southwest is letting rival airline elites match into top status, then potentially do it again year after year.
A viral video showed a Colorado Rockies coach sitting in a United cockpit midflight. The pilots were fired, the FAA investigated, and the captain now argues she was retaliated against for reporting the incident, but the security breach happened on her watch.
Emirates may get the right to fly Tel Aviv–New York, and not just as a stopover on the way to Dubai. Israel is reportedly offering the Gulf carrier rare seventh-freedom rights, setting up a fight with El Al, Delta, United, and anyone else that does not want Emirates competing on one of the most politically sensitive long-haul routes in the world.
United’s “Agent on Demand” is supposed to replace the airport customer service desk when travel goes sideways. But after a canceled flight in Atlanta, one passenger says the remote agent offered “nothing,” sent her to the 800 number, and could be heard talking about her while the call was still live.
fter more than 17 hours in the air from Dubai, Emirates flight 213 reached Miami in thunderstorms, missed one landing for windshear and poor visibility, then got sent around again when the runway was not clear. That second go-around turned “minimum fuel” into a Mayday call.
A passenger on a Shenzhen Airlines Boeing 737 noticed something wrong with the wing, photographed it, and showed the cabin crew — and after landing, the jet was pulled from service for maintenance. It appears to have been a loose or detached flap rail fairing, the kind of issue passengers may see from the cabin before anyone in the cockpit can.
American Airlines is not known for Delta-style bidding wars when flights are oversold. But on a Philadelphia–Athens flight, the airline reportedly kept raising the offer until three passengers got $4,500 each to delay their Greece trip by one day — an unusually rich payout from a carrier that normally stops bidding much earlier.
Soon your AI may book your flights. The question is whether it will find the best fare for you — or the one that pays its creator, after researchers found models could be prompted to push $1,500 sponsored flights over $500 alternatives.
AFA-CWA wants the government to force airlines to add flight attendants on widebody jets in the name of evacuation safety. But the FAA’s own data says evacuations are already safe, and risks involve passenger bags, communication, blocked exits, smoke, fire, and training — not too few flight attendants.
Warren Buffett spent decades warning that airlines destroy capital, joking that investors needed to be talked down before buying them. Now Berkshire Hathaway is back anyway, disclosing a $2.6 billion stake in Delta — its third major run at an industry Buffett once treated like an addiction.
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 »
