Airlines

Category Archives for Airlines.

Alitalia’s Old Frequent Flyer Program Sells For Less Than $5 Million?

by Gary Leff

alitalia plane
Apr 01 2024

ITA Airways is the new Alitalia – a small Italian state airline that the EU keeps slow-walking Lufthansa’s ability to buy. It’s Alitalia with a new name, without some of its legacy costs, but with many of the same problems with its business model.

One thing that’s different about ITA Airways, though, is the frequent flyer program. ITA Airways is a member of SkyTeam but it only has limited participation. They don’t fully link up with all other members of the alliance.

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Bad to Worse: How a Single Clogged Toilet Caused a Boeing 777 to Abandon Its Transatlantic Journey

by Gary Leff

lavatory
Apr 01 2024

On Friday, United Airlines flight 59 from Frankfurt to San Francisco had to turn around when a toilet overflowed. The Boeing 777-300ER was at 30,000 feet around 70 nautical miles northwest of Amsterdam when pilots asked to enter a holding pattern to troubleshoot the lav. Half an hour later they turned back.

Apparently one of the lavatory toilets “overflowed” and what was called “the soup” spilled into the cabin, with an unbearable stench.

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$580 for 129 Miles? Politicians Rail Over United Airlines Monopoly And High Fares In U.S. Territories

by Gary Leff

Mar 31 2024

If Jimmy McMillan had been a resident of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, he might have declared the airfares are too damned high!. Politicians in Guam and Saipan have figured out that you never lose by taking on the cost of air travel. And, they complain, that “[a] roundtrip ticket from Saipan to Guam can cost up to $580 on United Airlines. That’s more expensive than some tickets from the Marianas to destinations in Asia.”

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Whole New Era: Southwest Airlines Expected To Announce DFW Service Next Month, Up To 23 Flights

by Gary Leff

airport
Mar 29 2024

The airline’s founding was all about its refusal to fly out of DFW airport. Their intra-Texas model depended on short commutes to the airport. The DFW Metroplex has evolved substantially over the past 50 years, and Dallas – Fort Worth it itself a closer airport to much of the population.

And Southwest can’t grow at Love Field anymore, in part because no one can given the reduction in gates there that handed the carrier a near-monopoly. So DFW growth now makes sense, and they’re likely to jump in just as soon as they’re able.

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Small City Air Subsidies Were Supposed To End In 1988. Instead, Congress Is About To Triple Them.

by Gary Leff

Mar 29 2024

The Essential Air Service program was created in the late 1970s as a temporary measure to soften the blow of deregulation. It provided for a ’10 year transition’ period in which small community service could receive subsidies. And it’s the perfect example of the old axiom that there’s nothing as permanent in life as a temporary government program. The program was supposed to end in 1988.

Instead, the Senate’s FAA reauthorization bill includes a tripling of funding for the program going forward.

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