Category Archives for Airlines.
Frontier Airlines has lost in court after keeping $5.4 million in TSA security taxes that passengers paid on tickets they never used, then arguing the money was theirs once travel credits expired. The ruling is a warning to other carriers still fighting the same battle, because it says those fees were never the airline’s money to keep in the first place.
The Trump administration is reportedly preparing a $500 million bailout for Spirit Airlines, a carrier that has already burned through bankruptcy, taxpayer aid, and private capital without finding a viable business model. If this goes through, it will not just hand public money to a failing airline — it will normalize using legally dubious federal power to socialize losses for companies the market has already given up on.
American Airlines will announce a deal that gives ConciergeKey members access to PS private terminals, extending one of the most exclusive ground products in commercial aviation to its top customers. This fits with PS’s expansion into Dallas and Miami this summer and gives American a new way to make its invitation-only status feel meaningfully more premium than priority check-in, golf carts, and upgrade priority.
Frontier Airlines is suing American after another gate collision between the two carriers, arguing this latest incident was not just a one-off ground accident but part of a pattern. Liability seems clear but it’s not obvious how much Frontier can recover beyond repair costs, and American has already offered to pay half.
The problem for Spirit is that they really have very little of actual value for an investor or acquirer.
Shortly after takeoff from Las Vegas, a Southwest captain was struck in the head by the cockpit heads-up display hard enough to leave him seeing stars and vomiting, forcing the flight to turn back.
Passengers on an American Airlines regional flight from the Bahamas say the trip unraveled because the pilots got into a fight after arriving, forcing a cancellation before anyone could leave. Families were kept outside in Caribbean heat for more than 90 minutes, then left to sort out hotels and transportation on their own when the airline finally called the flight off.
American Airlines has started issuing performance grades to flight attendants, using a mix of customer survey data, operational metrics, and internal compliance measures to score how they are doing. That is a meaningful shift for an airline that badly needs better onboard service, but unless those scores eventually lead to real rewards for top performers and real consequences for chronic underperformance, it will not come close to fixing the deeper problem.
Spirit is no longer just asking the government for cash to avoid liquidation. The new twist is that the airline has floated a bailout structure where taxpayers would wind up owning part of the company, turning a desperate plea for survival into a proposal to socialize losses in one of the weakest business models in U.S. aviation.
Airlines all over the world are seizing on high jet fuel prices tied to the Iran conflict to press governments for emergency aid, tax breaks, subsidized loans, and other relief. Spirit’s bailout request is getting the attention, but the whole industry is trying to normalize another round of taxpayer support.
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 »
