Category Archives for Airlines.
United Airlines has forced out flight attendant Arina Bloom for her TikTok videos. She reports that someone “made an anonymous complaint” about her, and though United had previously commented positively on her online presence it became a liability.
In the 1970s it was much easier to take on a new identity than it is today. Assume the name of someone who died young and didn’t create much of a paper trail, and won’t be using it, Perhaps someone that didn’t get a social security number when they were born (it was much more common then). Get a copy of their birth certificate, apply for a social security card.
I knew someone that did this, and not the guy in Catch Me If You Can.
For years my favorite workaround was to dial Singapore reservations, using an internet calling app to avoid high rates. You’d get an English-speaking agent, and the hold times wouldn’t be bad at all most of the time. When U.S. flights were melting down, people call U.S. reservations – not foreign call centers.
Unfortunately you no longer get routed into a separate phone queue by ringing up Singapore. That is no longer a ‘trick’ to avoid the long hold times of the U.S. phone number for Delta.
Cancellations are abundant across airlines at this point, and are already spreading into Sunday and even Monday, despite incentives for employees to show up. Some may come into work sick, others may be calling in sick for the usual New Year’s reasons (with Covid meaning there aren’t the extra crew available to pick up those shifts). And schedule turmoil extends because planes and crew wind up out of position and airlines take time to recover from that. Meanwhile, while it’s possible that Omicron spreads so fast we’ll be peaking soon in parts of the country, the number of people unavailable to work appears to be growing.
It’s been drama on a lot of levels because the offer was – unsurprisingly – pulled early and it took some time to sort out getting Mastercard to pay more than budgeted on this bonus offer. And then miles per posting, but not properly for everyone, and then being taken away.
There’s still no miles earned reflected in my SimplyMiles account. However, miles are posting to AAdvantage accounts, which you can see at AA.com.
On Wednesday evening passengers on board United Airlines flight 2325 from Newark to Orange County, California were relieved to take off after three and a half hour delay. Finally on their way at 10 minutes past 8 o’clock in the evening, they had a much longer journey in store than they’d anticipated.
Congratulations to everyone who got in on this deal. It’s hard to overstate just how incredible this offer was. And kudos to American Airlines and Mastercard for honoring the offer made to customers even if it might have been considered “too good to be true.”
American Airlines flight AA2578 from San Diego to Miami last night appears to be just the sort of flight that I had in mind, where a flight attendant went to lengths to try to show up – as incentivized by premium holiday pay – even when they were too sick to fly.
I’m told that one of the flight attendants was sick but went to the airport anyway, intending to fly, but called in sick once they’d arrived. There’s a second hand suggestion that the crewmember had Covid symptoms, but this isn’t necessary for the point. The flight wound up cancelling and the remaining crew – two pilots and three flight attendants – operated the aircraft to Miami without passengers as American Airlines AA9782.
Last week Emirates flight EK-231 from Dubai to Washington Dulles “was accelerating for takeoff from Dubai’s runway 30R when the aircraft rotated for takeoff past the end of the runway” and the Boeing 777-300 (registration A6-EQI) continued anyway – all the way to DC. It even flew back to Dubai as scheduled, but the aircraft was then grounded for four days after it returned. The FAA is investigating.
Dr. Anthony Fauci has been making the rounds on public affairs programs for several days talking up vaccination requirements for domestic travel. He emphasizes in each case that it makes sense for international travel to keep virus cases out of the country (but unvaccinated Americans are allowed to return, and the virus is already spreading here rapidly).
Fauci then goes on to suggest that a domestic vaccine travel requirement would make sense, not to ‘keep the virus out’, but to serve as an incentive to get vaccinated. In addition to being legally questionable, it may wind up having the opposite effect Fauci hopes.
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 »
