Category Archives for Airlines.
In 2012 I wrote that wifi would eventually be free, once there was enough bandwidth on board so that one customer’s use didn’t trade off with another’s. That’s largely happened. JetBlue and Delta offer free wifi. United is moving to Starlink (enough bandwidth) which will be free. And it looks like American is being pushed there – dragged kicking and screaming, perhaps, but they have to get there.
It’s people who fly the most who (1) understand the difference in product [they are repeat buyers!] and (2) are willing to spend more to get the experience they want. They suffered from degraded product and service – less legroom and seat padding both in the front and back cabins, less food and lower quality meals on board (again in both cabins) and myriad cuts across the board.
These reputational issues have now gone mainstream, beyond just frequent flyers.
No checked bag fees has been a sine qua non of Southwest Airlines. Customers choose Southwest because of this. It makes them appear friendlier and more flexible. And there are strong economic reasons why this is a great choice for the airline. It also differentiates them from other airlines, in an otherwise mostly homogenous industry. And free checked bags may be on the way out. Departure Of Chief Transformation Officer Signals Change Ryan Green has been in charge of the Southwest Airlines transformation. Under pressure from activist investor Elliott Management, they’ve been making changes – and becoming more like the rest of the industry – but not fast enough for the fund that’s taken control of nearly half the Board of Directors. Green is leaving, and the news followed the announcement of the upcoming departures…
Delta Air Lines will be announcing new service from Atlanta to Marrakech, Morocco. It’s not clear what aircraft they will use for the flight, or what frequency they’ll offer.
British Airways just treated its high-flyers like a bunch of proper numpties, saying, ‘bugger off, muppets.’ Lufthansa said hold my (German) beer, declaring: ‘Hau ab, ihr Trottel!’
This week’s guest on the Airlines Confidential podcast was flight attendants union head Sara Nelson. Since retirement, Doug Parker has been taking victory laps with her over their ability to work together to secure three rounds of massive subsidies during the pandemic.
I feel like American could invest in just offering this to all members who reach 15,000 Loyalty Points. They will sell 1,000 Loyalty Points to partners for about $50. So they consider the 1,000 Loyalty Points you’re giving up to select the bag tag to be worth real money.
American Airlines is running a promotion that should be available in most accounts to earn 500 bonus loyalty points per flight segment taken in March, up to 5,000 bonus loyalty points.
You can transfer 1,000 Capital One points into 5,600 JetBlue TrueBlue points right now. And since JetBlue points are worth about 1.3 cents apiece, that means getting 7.3 cents per Capital One point in value which is almost unheard of.
A Southwest Airlines pilot narrowly averted disaster this morning when their Boeing 737-800 (registration N8517F) was preparing to land at Chicago Midway airport. Flight 2504 from Omaha was in the gradual pitch-up just prior to touchdown when it initiated a go around as a business jet crossed the runway. The plane climbed out, and landed safely 15 minutes later.
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 »
