Category Archives for Airlines.
Delta Air Lines may be starting to turn a corner with their internal operations finally, after melting down on Friday, cancelling thousands of flights (nearly 3 times as many as in all of 2019 and more cancellations than in all of 2018 and 2019 combined), and displacing hundreds of thousands of passengers.
Passengers won’t notice it today but the pieces are beginning to come into place to get to a better place.
Monday was supposed to be better for Delta than Sunday – and it was, just cancelled ‘only’ 1,153 flights or 29% of their operation, and delayed another 45% more. On Sunday it was 36% canceled and 44% delayed.
There’s no end in sight because even before 6 a.m. Tuesday they’ve already cancelled over 10% of the day’s flights. They have planes out of position for maintenance – perhaps as many as 40% of their aircraft – and they still don’t know where their crews are and can’t get them assigned to flights.
Since all of the major transferable currencies – Chase, American Express, Citi, Capital One and Bilt – transfer to Air France KLM, most of you have access to these points. Pricing is much lower than you’ll find through El Al directly, or through Delta.
Delta often claims to have been the first airline to fly with business class suites, but that isn’t true. Qatar Airways was first, and their QSuite debuted seven years ago and remains one of the best business class products in the sky. The overall Qatar Airways business class experience is better than first class on airlines like British Airways and American.
It is clear that you do not want to be a Delta customer even today, which hopefully will be better than the past three days. As of 6 a.m. Eastern the carrier has ‘only’ scrubbed 15% of its flights while American is at 1% and United 0%.
This absence certificate being required by the airline is extensive and invasive, demanding personal health information including a “treatment plan” and “progress of treatment” that is highly unusual to share with any employer – let alone for merely taking a sick day that an employee is contractually entitled to when sick.
SkyTeam member Vietnam Airlines flies non-stop between the U.S. and Vietnam – four-times weekly San Francisco – Ho Chi Minh City service – with an Airbus A350. There is fantastic business class award availability right now for this flight, for up to 4 passengers per flight, whether looking for trips right away through eleven months from now. You can use this flight to connect onward in Southeast Asia (or, if you’re willing to pay the requisite miles, even beyond).
Delta is a good airline that is not doing very well right now. But it’s also an overrated airline, a result of its own PR machine that persistently beats the drum about how premium it is despite workhorse Boeing 767s whose premium passenger experience lags that of both American and United. This is a strong reminder that though it performs marginally better much of the time, and its crews are marginally friendlier, it’s still an airline and can underperform peers in dramatic ways.
Starting today, and until further notice, United Airlines requires a doctor’s note from any flight attendant calling in sick from duty on a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. They note that sick calls have increased over summer weekends by as much as 23% and they believe cabin crew are misusing their sick time.
Southwest Airlines is being sued for “failure to protect a minor” from an inflight sex assault. There are terrible passengers out there, who do terrible things.
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 »
