Category Archives for Airlines.
The attire on this Spirit Airlines flight attendant haunts me. I can’t stop watching it, and I can’t look away. She parades down the aisle dressed in concert, while another crewmember makes an announcement about it. She’s apparently promoting her Philadelphia-based cleaning services business that she runs on the side.
When your flights are cancelled or substantially delayed, and the airline can’t get you where you’re going, sometimes you’re willing to… fly somewhere else. If you’re flying cross-country, you might even take something hundreds of miles away from your destination, if the trip is important enough. Maybe you’d fly to Los Angeles instead of San Francisco and drive.
An interesting question is, what if anything does an airline owe you if you do actually fly – but don’t fly where you were trying to go?
Say what you will about the business logic of providing United pilots with a richer contract, these aren’t traditional blue collar workers. They aren’t working 80 hour weeks to make ends meet and slowly falling behind, they fly 80 hours a month, and are well-paid, and many of them have side businesses – hardly the image of Cesar Chavez standing up with grape workers, “We draw our strength from the very despair in which we have been forced to live. We shall endure.”
The customer thinks they’re dealing with the airline. They’re told they have no other options but to pay. And travelers, desperate for help, clearly agree to be charged.
99% of pilots casting a ballot voted to authorize a strike. This was largely pitched to members as negotiating leverage: vote to strike so you don’t need to strike. It’s a threat to the company to get them to give more in negotiations.
Once a union calls for strike authorization, members have to go along – otherwise the union’s credibility implodes and the company knows there isn’t a strike threat looming in the background.
Despite several reports in frequent flyer forums and on blogs to the contrary, it is still possible to make changes to partner awards. No policy change went into effect May 4 that would alter this. And American Airlines confirms this to me.
Southwest Airlines released a 12 minute film about a woman who a flight, rented a car, and wound up in the 1880s. It’s Back To The Future meets The Big Chill but with a woman who meets up with her father in a past that precedes both of them. And they did this as an homage to Kiyoshi Kurosaw because something about their 50th anniversary being two years ago.
With so much time on hold it’s easy to call Delta and listen to their hold music and really pick up the beat. One customer did just that. And played the French horn.
I’ve written several times that the biggest and worst devaluation of the Delta SkyMiles program only seems to apply to flights that either start or end in the United States. SkyMiles now charges for partner awards, which are all saver awards and limited in availability, as though they were awards on Delta. That’s how you can get over 500,000 miles one way for a coach award between the U.S. and Thailand.
But if you start a trip in Mexico, you’re effectively rolling back to the last devaluation where partner awards are merely super expensive. And this creates an opportunity.
Star Alliance member EVA Air has opened up award space wide for available dates in 2024 on most of their North America routes. This means nearly every day at least through March, and in many cases it means that if you are looking for 8 award seats, and want everyone on the same flights, now is your chance.
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 »
