Category Archives for Airlines.
After making a roundtrip booking you won’t be able to go back and see online how many miles the outbound and return segments are worth separately. You can find out by calling. But there’s a clear amount of residual value that the return portion of your award ticket will have after you’ve flown the outbound, and this will be used towards any changes you need to make.
The federal government is considering banning air carrier operations that diverge from the model of American Airlines, United, and Delta in order to operate niche service from small cities and private terminals. And the only reason they’re doing this is as a concession to lobbying by unions and an incumbent airline – groups that don’t want to compete with more pilots and innovative business models.
The FAA is considering requiring carriers currently operating as scheduled charters to instead operate as scheduled air carriers, effectively putting upstarts out of business. The loudest lobbying voice with the ear of the powerful wins?
Emirates finally offers an explanation for why they keep raising the price of awards while also adding $1,600 co-pays when you spend your miles. And the answer is, basically, because once you acquire their miles you’re stuck and they can.
Southwest Airlines flight 872 from Dallas Love Field to Kansas City Friday morning made an unscheduled stop in Wichita today in order to drop off a flight attendant. Passengers weren’t told this was happening until just before boarding.
A passenger on board shares that the “17-year veteran pilot apologize[d]” to everyone on board for the extra long trip and offered that the situation was a “first for him too.”
Investment banking firm T.D. Cowen says that with the airline not appealing the anti-trust ruling against their American Airlines partnership, an anti-trust settlement allowing their Spirit Airlines acquisition to move forward may be in the offing after Labor Day or at least in advance of a trial set to begin in October.
Taiwan-based EVA Air, a member of the Star Alliance, operates a bus route. In Texas. Sadly, the service ends August 31.
The termination of this bus service actually makes previously-booked paid travel between Houston and Taipei refundable, because you might have relied on the free bus to Dallas.
American Airlines has been getting close with Qatar Airways, so close they appear as though they’re violating anti-trust laws; so close there’s speculation that Qatar could once again try to buy a stake in American Airlines and this time it would be welcomed.
When SkyWest proposed to mimic JSX’s model, in order to provide Essential Air Service flights, the big pilot union went ballistic. They see an end-run around hard-fought limits on entry into the pilot profession. People were able to fly with fewer than 1,500 hours – in fact, they were getting paid to build up hours that would qualify them to fly for major airlines. These hours are even better and safer that what most commercial pilots fly to qualify – real operations, not just 1,000 in clear weather flying Cessna doing touch-and-go’s at the same three or four airports.
Airline inflight wifi in the United States is converging around free, or for those carriers that charge the price generally hovers around $8 per flight. The exception to this is American Airlines, where connectivity for a single device on a flight can cost over $20.
Instead of paying per flight, I pay $49.95 per month covering a single device on their narrowbody aircraft (both ViaSat and Intelsat, formerly Gogo, equipment). American has just announced two new pricing options, and I’m confused?
JetBlue’s deal to buy Spirit Airlines isn’t just being challenged by the government. There’s a civil suit as well, because why not piggy back on government opposition for a payday? Only lawyers made an oops in redactions – and as a result exposed “internal company estimates of plans to hike fares on Spirit planes by as much as 40%.” And this could make JetBlue’s defense of the deal against government anti-trust charges that much harder.
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 »
