Category Archives for Airlines.
According to an internal memo, United is boarding planes two minutes slower than they were prior to the pandemic. And so they’re moving to what they call WILMA, which is basically ‘Window Middle Aisle,” and adding a new sixth boarding group for domestic flights.
American Airlines is adding a seasonal route network from the Northeast to summer seaside destinations in and around Cape Cod as well as Maine and Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Previously most of these destinations would have been served to American’s customers by JetBlue, but that partnership is mostly through winding down after a district court judge ruled against it in an anti-trust case.
El Al doesn’t fly on Shabbat, from sundown Friday evening until sundown Saturday evening, as a religious observance. However they will operate from both the New York and Bangkok this Saturday to assist in bringing reservists back to Israel as part of the country’s call up of 360,000 (4% of their population).
El Al will not be charging for these flights. Instead, the cost “will be borne by El Al and large US financial institutions” according to the airline.
The current status program was itself a big improvement, and it appears that the 2024 changes are generally improvements as well.
The FAA is considering a rule to treat public charters the same way as large commercial airlines, rewriting rules going back 30 years. This would mean that co-pilots for carriers like JSX and the proposed SkyWest Charter could only employ co-pilots with 1,500 hours of training (whether in a tethered hot air balloon or otherwise) and JSX wouldn’t be able to fly from private terminals.
JSX emailed all of their customers asking them to comment on the FAA’s proposed rulemaking. Over 20,000 people filed comments to oppose these changes. Does that matter?
Emirates as a company hasn’t prioritized loyalty and so the head of loyalty optimizes within that framework. Revenue management won’t release award inventory to the program to any meaningful degree, so Skywards is stuck promoting using their miles as cash towards flights on the airline and cannot buy excess inventory to sell at a profitable discount through the frequency program.
While coffee in the air faces too many challenges to be really enjoyable, it’s perhaps the most important tool in the toolkit for solving inflight problems – and it can keep a flight from becoming miserable.
Air Canada has suspended a pilot who went on a social media posting rampage against Israel and Jews. The pilot posted to his since-deleted Instagram account in uniform draped in a Palestinian flag and stating, Israel – Hitler is proud of you – terrorist state,” “F- you Israel. Burn in hell” and “Keep the world clean” as a caption to eliminating an Israeli flag.
Sometimes there’s no avoiding it, and you need to put more than one airline in the same reservation. That’s supposed to be the point of airline alliances, and joint ventures are supposed to work even better, though in practice they rarely do.
And sometimes it’s cheaper to book a codeshare or partner itinerary. Just know that this savings isn’t ‘free’ but rather comes at a customer service cost if there’s a schedule change or if your plans change.
Marriott Bonvoy Titanium and Ambassador members, and United Gold elites and higher, can earn extra points when flying or staying with the other partner through December 9.
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 »
