According to Delta President Glen Hauenstein, cancellation rates vary far more than they did before the pandemic so Delta plans to increase overbooking and ‘see what happens’ – because without change fees on most fares, people are changing plans more at the last minute. This could result in more passengers denied boarding.
Airlines
Category Archives for Airlines.
DOJ: Polar Air Cargo Required Customers To Pay Bribes For Shipping. They Even Had A Bribery Price List!
Atlas Air subsidiary Polar Air Cargo, 49% owned by DHL, has apparently been requiring kickbacks for shipments for over a decade. Several of their executives – including the Chief Operating Officer, VP of Operations and VP of Marketing, are now under indictment.
According to the government, if you wanted to ship with Polar you’d have to pay shipping rates plus a bribe.
5 Secret Trips To Upgrade To First Class. You’ll Look Like An Idiot Trying Them, Though.
There’s a certain genre of travel article that gives advice on how to upgrade your flight, with advice that’s nearly always wrong or at least highly misleading.
Here’s the latest piece on how to “blag” a free upgrade to first class “because you deserve to travel like Beyonce’.” And they’ve consulted “travel insiders and airline experts” to show you how to do it. You’ll know what your fellow passengers are reading when they look like an idiot at the airport.
FARE ALERT: Business Class New York – London From $1585 Roundtrip On New Alitalia
ITA Airways, the ‘new’ Alitalia, is running a fare sale between New York and London via Rome. Business class tickets are available as low as $1585 roundtrip when purchasing for travel in August and beyond. That’s roughly half the price you’d expect to pay for a non-stop, and more than $1,000 less per passenger compared to connecting itineraries on Aer Lingus and Austrian.
Alaska Airlines Removes Portland Check-In Kiosks, Tells Passengers Print Your Boarding Passes At Home!
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 Introduces Points Planes, Flights They Refuse To Sell For Cash
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
Delta Will Fly To London Gatwick Airport To Stick It To JetBlue And Norse Atlantic
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.
Business Class Deal: Europe From $1918 Roundtrip
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.
Aer Lingus Moves To JFK Terminal 7, Not Good For Passengers
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.
Corrupt oneworld Airline SriLankan May Finally Be Privatized
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.