Category Archives for Airlines.
Airline check-in kiosks were supposed to be a money-saving investment – a classic example of automation replacing workers. But Alaska is moving to the next stage of evolution in cost-savings in the Portland airport where they’re now eliminating even kiosk jobs.
British Airways is launching ‘Avios Only’ flights – flights they aren’t selling for cash, just making available for redemption.
More airlines should offer more availability once they properly understand the value in delivering to members over the long-term. Programs should be willing to spend more with their airline on seats, to avoid killing their golden goose – in the U.S. the biggest airline loyalty programs are worth 11 figures, and generate $5 billion-plus annually in revenue. Frustrated members reduce that long-term value proposition
Before the pandemic, when Norwegian was operating the route, Delta planned to fly to Gatwick using a Boeing 757 without Delta Suites. It was totally obvious what they were doing, with a product well-matched to Norwegian’s.
This was supposed to start in May 2020, but didn’t happen because of the pandemic – and because Norwegian ceased its transatlantic flying. Now that JetBlue offers a real business class on the route, Delta has upgraded to a Boeing 767.
Star Alliance member TAP Air Portugal is selling business class roundtrips from New York JFK and Newark to Vienna starting at $1918, with other European destinations – like Zurich, Nice and Frankfurt – $100 to $200 more.
The Irish carrier often offers inexpensive business class hops across the Pond, connecting to single cabin service in Europe. It has a codeshare partnership with American’s partner JetBlue, so they’ve sold tickets for onward connections at JFK on JetBlue. It was convenient, then, to have Aer Lingus in JFK terminal 5 co-located with JetBlue. With U.S. immigration pre-clearance in Ireland you get off the flight in New York as though it were domestic, and don’t even need to clear security to connect.
That’s going away, since starting April 27 Aer Lingus will be moving to JFK’s terminal 7 which means changing terminals for connections to JetBlue and therefore also re-clearing security.
Sri Lanka is one of the three largest recipients of lending from China. Their basic problem is spending more money than they have, and then limiting further what they have through regulation. The government there decided farms needed to switch to organic practices, banning chemical fertilizers and pesticides, which led to lower yields without being offset by higher prices. Food shortages followed.
The government needs to curtail its spending and devalue its currency. Part of that means reducing subsidies of inefficient businesses, that have been kept as corrupt enterprises to benefit powerful elites.
Southwest Airlines used to carry more local passengers to and from Denver, while United had more passengers total given their big connecting hub there. Now United actually carries more Denver locals, too – a result of offering more total seats in the market (they’ve replaced a bunch of regional jets with mainline flying). There’s no reason to make disingenuous advertising claims when they actually have a killer argument to make. Yet somehow they fail to do so?
Fares aren’t usually cheaper when you book roundtrip the way they used to be. And, outside of basic economy fares, there usually aren’t change fees anymore – so buying one way tickets won’t ‘double the change fees’ if you have to cancel a trip the way that they used to. So much of the time you can take advantage of the flexibility that separate tickets offered.
This is a war of all against all, and you have to take care of yourself, the best way to do that is to race the boarding gate and get on as soon as your boarding group is called.
Former United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz is out with a new book, Turnaround Time: Uniting an Airline and Its Employees in the Friendly Skies.
Munoz showed promise for United early on but stumbled. It’s his choice of airline President that is his legacy.
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 »
