Category Archives for Airlines.
Imagine how frustrating it would be as an airline customer to have your flight cancelled, get sent to a hotel for the night, and face a long line to get to your room – only to see your airline’s staff march right past you with priority.
United has been promoting ‘epic’ deals on award travel this week, with a different mystery destination each day – and sale prices available that day only.
Delta Air Lines cancelled more flights last month than they did in 2018 and 2019, in an historic meltdown following the CrowdStrike outage. They delayed taking care of customers, denied blame, and their CEO jetted off to Paris for the Olympics.
They’ve made a big show of their plan to sue CrowdStrike for damages, since this wasn’t Delta’s fault, but they have several hurdles to overcome.
Two flights in a row an American Airlines passenger found that overhead bins were virtually empty yet people were being required to gate check their carry-on bags. They weren’t allowed to bring their bags onto the plane, even though there was plenty of space.
This is one of the most frequent complaints about airlines I see in social media, day after day, alongside damaged checked bags. Those two complaints are related! Who wants to waste time at baggage claim when they land, only to find their bags lost or damaged?
Since current US Airways management took over, standby policies have been broken. They’ve been more focused on making sure customers don’t get a good deal with standby, potentially saving money, than on making sure customers get where they’re going. And they’re far less generous than Delta and United here.
Reader Doug asks why there’s no Coca-Cola in the Turkish Airlines business class or Miles & Smiles lounges in Istanbul? And some of you may not be aware of the reason either: it’s a political statement.
Airlines use up to four digits for flight numbers. That means they can have up to 9,999 flights (since there’s no flight zero), and no one comes close. American Airlines operates around 6,700 daily flights including its American Eagle regional services. So they should have plenty of room to grow!
Except they don’t. American Airlines, Delta, and United are running out of flight numbers, and nobody knows what to do about it.
Delta is giving employees two positive space passes for anywhere that Delta flies. Employees usually travel nonrevenue, space available for leisure. This lets them book confirmed travel. It’s costly to Delta, because it might displace a paying customer.
United Airlines offers less value on a basic economy ticket than competitors do. They don’t allow basic economy passengers to bring a regular carry-on bag on, and they haven’t allowed basic economy passengers to check in online, wasting passengers’ time. Fortunately they’re relaxing the online check-in rule but they’re doing it in a strange and troubling way.
Most people don’t realize that basic economy restrictions aren’t the same across airlines and that United Airlines offers much worse value than competitors.
On Tuesday a Southwest Airlines passenger was queuing to board. He and his wife had two of the very best boarding positions – A2 and A3. The person with A4 became hostile.
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 »
