Category Archives for Airlines.
United Airlines is running an award sale to Japan for 25,000 miles each way in economy. It’s marketed in a bit of a funny way, since they’re promoting both paid fares and awards on sale – the lede is about financing the trip for “$74/mo!”
I think it would be interesting if they promoted awards as ’12 months same as miles! Japan for just 2,083 miles per month!’ But financing travel is bigger business than you might expect.
United Airlines wants flight attendants to greet customers and thank them. They want cabin crew to offer to hang coats in premium cabins and offer pre-departure beverages. And they don’t want crew gossiping loudly in the galley.
If the airline’s flight attendants can do this, United believes they will earn a revenue premium since they argue that research suggests “service is more important to customers than price.”
A little over a year ago United Airlines fired two senior flight attendants who were union leaders. A junior crewmember reported their mask violations, and then the two senior crew solicited false conduct reports against the junior flight attendant in retaliation. United uncovered this, and had no choice but to fire the union reps.
It turns out United fired six senior flight attendants for bullying junior crew. And the six flight attendants are suing for age discrimination.
The headline result is that “Southwest Airlines is the worst offender for artificially inflating its flight times.” What’s interesting is how schedule padding has changed over time, and the claim here is that padding has increased from 8 minutes on average in 2012 to 11 minutes in 2022.
With their high costs, they need to earn a revenue premium in order to generate a profit, but they’ve been reluctant to make investments that would help to deliver the premium product.
As a frequent customer, with Executive Platinum status for over a decade and even briefly a ConciergeKey member, I’ve observed many of the pain points at the airline – many of which could be improved at low cost, or are bare minimum investments they need to make to remain competitive and continue generating revenue. So in the interests of helping American to deliver both a better and more profitable product, I share 12 realistic ways they can improve the customer experience.
The airline wants to prevent a mass exodus of staff when they need those staff most. So they impose penalties for using sick time at inconvenient times even when someone is sick (and likely to get customers sick, too). In years past sick calls with documentation were excused but under the point system, they aren’t.
Every airline has a cursed plane that consistently has more problems than the rest. At United Airlines one of these seems to be Boeing 767-300 registration N641UA.
This aircraft keeps having problems. Just last month the plane diverted to Newark. The same 32-year old aircraft had a gear problem on arrival in Chicago from London and a fuel imbalance reported over the Atlantic that caused a diversion to Iceland. Now it’s an engine fire.
For anyone who ever thought, “I’d like my whiskey to smell like cake,” Glenmorangie makes a $100 single malt aged in ex-bourbon barrels and finished in a Tokaji dessert wine cask.
Christopher Ambler packed a bottle in his checked luggage and entrusted it to United. Then, he says, it was returned to him one-third empty.
Even before the pandemic United cut flight attendant staffing in business class. They replaced proper plating of meals in the galley by a flight attendant with less attractive pre-plated meals.
The union wants staffing levels restored, and to pressure the airline as part of slow-moving contract negotiations they’re asking flight attendants to report their own poor service.
9,000 people signed a petition asking Delta Air Lines to reconsider. Delta did not respond to the petition.
Now the AFA-CWA union, which is trying to organize Delta flight attendants, is using that to drum up anger at the airline that might help their cause.
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 »
