Category Archives for Airlines.
Southwest Airlines doesn’t run any redeye flights but their CEO teased that they were coming back in the fall. There’s now a timeline for when we’ll see redeye flights from Southwest.
Without a vision for higher value work to be insourced from other airlines, there’s just not going to be as much high value work to do and legacy airline mechanics are too expensive for the lower value work. These broad trends almost ensure conflict between American Airlines and its mechanics union once negotiations begin in earnest.
A passenger was told that if they wanted to remove an item from their checked bag to get under their 50 pound allowance, they would have to go to the back of the line and start over – and then they would miss their flight (or, presumably, the cut-off time for checking bags before their flight).
Of course paying the overweight bag fee would likely take at least as long as avoiding the overweight bag fee.
The city doesn’t have a single Asia flight. It’s a big American Airlines hub. JAL has been studying the route. There are subsidies available. And the route doesn’t require overflying Russian airspace.
United Airlines plans to announce ‘family pooling’ of mileage this wee. This is a nice benefit where your kids can help you earn miles towards an award more quickly, and your once a year traveling in-laws can too. Miles get used faster, and become more useful.
JetBlue is eliminating a third of its Los Angeles flying, dropping four cities completely from its route networks, and pulling down other flights including several out of Fort Lauderdale. But it turns out they aren’t done cutting – and more route cuts will come next month.
Alaska Airlines is now selling a $5 per month subscription to fare alerts. For a monthly fee you’ll receive ads about their fare sales, which you can target to specific destinations.
American Airlines flight attendants haven’t had a raise since 2019. Their contract became amendable, but negotiations were first delayed by the pandemic and have been slow since. And the value of their wages have been eroded by inflation.
The airline has offered to match the top of the industry – what non-union Delta pays its flight attendants. The union has rejected this. Now American has made an intriguing new offer.
I wrote this week that JetBlue was telling employees it would pull down flying on the West Coast out of Los Angeles. They’re doing exactly that, and making other significant changes to their route network as well.
While we can look longingly at the food offerings of yesteryear, those only existed because tickets were priced beyond affordability and competition with lower fares was against the law, at least where federal regulations applied
In fact it’s the end of the lavish meals for most airline passengers that has marked the progress of civilization.
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 »
