Category Archives for Airlines.
American Airlines has fantastic inflight wifi on most of its planes, but there’s a portion of its fleet that lacks internet entirely and there are many planes where it’s unusable. There was a time when this made sense for technical reasons, because the flights these planes served were usually short, and because passengers weren’t as reliant on what’s become such a basic service.
Ultimately the flight attendant call button is for… calling the attention of a flight attendant. That means, if you need a drink, ask. But understand that they may make you wait, and if you’re on Spirit they may make you pay. They may also make you wait out of spite, because you pressed the call button.
There’s a meme circulating in financial twitter that airline frequent flyer programs are worth more than the market cap of the airline itself, which means the market is assigning negative value to the airline itself. The unstated implication here is that the airline should quit the flying and focus on the core credit card business.
JSX flies Embraer regional jets in a premium configuration from private terminals. You can buy tickets for scheduled service on their website, and earn miles from United or JetBlue.
They operate mostly in California, Texas, the Southwest and up the East Coast between Florida and Texas, they have a premium seating configuration, and everyone is friendly. Plus they have StarLink satellite internet. And now more free food and amenities.
Richard Branson pledged he would do launch a new Virgin airline in the U.S. if Alaska Airlines dropped the name, which suggests Branson certainly thought use of the trademark reverted to Virgin. He repeated the claim multiple times.
Virgin’s position at the Commercial Court of the High Court of Justice of England and Wales is that Branson was effectively lying – that Virgin had no right to use the trademark for an airline in the U.S. anymore – and that Alaska Airlines had purchased the exclusive right through 2039 whether they used it or not.
Earlier today there was a small fire at New York JFK’s terminal 1 which caused an electrical panel to fail. It closed down the terminal. Many flights diverted, while Air New Zealand flight 2 non-stop from Auckland made a 16 hour flight to nowhere – while the pilots argued with the company to press on.
MIAT Mongolian Airlines has a brand new Boeing 787-9, will acquire another, and wants to fly to the San Francisco.
Inflight internet on JetBlue is free. Delta Air Lines has made wifi free as long as you join the free SkyMiles program (this lets them market their credit card to you).
Southwest Airlines, whose bags fly free, is going the opposite direction with internet. In a change expected to be announced on Tuesday, they will be making it more expensive for passengers that have to take more than one flight to reach their destination.
This can be a good deal on upgrades, not just full redemption tickets, and the deal makes economy travel more reasonable where fuel surcharges are lower (but still – always compare to the cash cost of a ticket to see what the savings are). Northeast – London is just 7,000 miles one way after discount. This isn’t just for business class. And it’s definitely a nice offer for Virgin Atlantic credit card customers with upgrade and 2-for-1 vouchers.
United Airlines flight attendants, represented by the AFA-CWA union, have been working on a contract over the past year and a half and report very little progress. Direct negotiations began in January 2022, yet there’s been resolution on just one section out of 34 in their contract – dealing with flight attendants taken hostage.
Here’s what they’re demanding, and why negotiations are stuck.
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 »
