Category Archives for Airlines.
The two most common complaints I see about airlines in social media, being offered with photos, are both about baggage. Passengers share photos of checked bags being damaged, and about overhead bins with plenty of space after being forced to check their carry-ons ‘because the bins were full’.
Passengers flying Air Serbia in late June and early July were apparently having their bags lost at a very high rate. And many, perhaps most haven’t seen their bags since. Luggage is piling up at their hub airport in Belgrade. Reportedly only a couple of employees are processing large amounts of lost luggage for the Serbian national carrier, which flies to New York JFK and Chicago O’Hare, and nobody knows when or if they’ll work through the backlog.
People are literally calling the police in Belgrade to report their bags as stolen. Others are flying to Belgrade in search of their bags.
While most airline have eliminated the ability to put an award “on hold” one of the more consumer-friendly features of American AAdvantage has been the offer to hold an award for up to 5 days rather than having to purchase it immediately. (Travel within a week is limited to just one day.)
Without any announcement, American appears to have reduced the allowable hold time from 5 days to 3 days.
United Airlines is launching daily service from San Francisco to Manila, and bringing back Los Angeles – Tokyo Narita and Hong Kong. They’re adding Taipei flying and are trying to expand back into mainland China.
United’s flight from Zurich to Chicago O’Hare lost an emergency slide on Monday, as it floated down over a Chicago-area neighborhood prior to arrival. The Boeing 767 was discovered to have a missing slide on arrival. It landed in the backyard of a home close to the airport, damaging a roof.
British Airways is moving to revenue-based points-earning starting October 18. This applies to their own flights credited to the Executive Club program.
In the spring I wrote about scammers taking over an old Singapore Airlines phone number and pretending to be Singapore Airlines when customers call. The scammers charge high fees for basic services the airline would normally provide for free, like helping with seat assignments.
It turns out there’s another variation on this scam: the agency gets Google’s search results for the airline at a specific airport changed to display their phone number.
Buying seats that you do not intend to fly, to keep other people from buying them, creates actual harm to the airline (it prevents them from earning revenue). They won’t sit idly by. Consequences could be even greater.
It can be jarring to be told to weighh your carry on as you’re about to board, not just put it in the sizer to make sure its measurements are compliant. But it’s all part of updating data for safety.
Last month I broke the news that Southwest Airlines would start selling overnight connection flights for the first time. The plan was initially to launch this on June 26, but it was delayed. The airline has a new date this time: Wednesday, July 19th.
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 »
