Airlines

Category Archives for Airlines.

How American Airlines – And Corporate America – Is Changing Its Tune On Vaccines

by Gary Leff

Sep 13 2021

Airlines have a real problem when employees call out sick, especially during peak times like holidays. So they want their employees to be vaccinated. United Airlines has been willing to say ‘no vaccine, no work.’ Delta Air Lines first said vaccines would be required for new hires, and then said existing employees who didn’t get vaccinated would face higher insurance co-pays and other measures.

So far American Airlines has stuck to incentives – time off for getting vaccinated and $50 worth of company scrip – but found that many simply wouldn’t do it. Reading employee message boards there’s a lot of vaccine hesitancy, skepticism, and anger.

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Southwest Will Start Serving Cocktail Mixers On Board, Without The Alcohol

by Gary Leff

Sep 13 2021

With the extension of the mask mandate into January 2022, Southwest Airlines told employees that it’s not bringing back alcohol this year. No word yet on what happens to expiring drink coupons.

While alcohol won’t be served on board, mixers will be as a standalone starting next month because the airline had planned to bring back cocktail service and had to order these ahead of time.

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Delta Flight Left The Gate With More Passengers Than Seats

by Gary Leff

Sep 12 2021

Early this morning Delta flight 1732 from Charleston, South Carolina to Atlanta pushed back from the gate – with more passengers on board than seats. The Boeing 737-900 has 180 passenger seats, but there were 182 passengers on board.

The aircraft returned to the gate quickly to offload the extra passengers, but this is uncommon enough I tried to find out how this happened and why the aircraft was moving back from the gate without everyone on board being seated.

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Hot Nuts Returning To American Airlines

by Gary Leff

Sep 12 2021

American Airlines is starting to bring back hots nuts, at least on some long haul business class flights. My domestic first class flights over the past 10 days still had packaged nuts.

Soon you won’t have to buy your own first class nut mix online anymore, and bring the nuts on board yourself for a flight attendant to heat up.

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American Airlines Converted Flight Credits Into Trip Credits: What You Need To Know

by Gary Leff

airline ticket
Sep 12 2021

Over the summer I wrote a guide to the mind-numbingly complicated differences between an American Airlines trip credit, travel voucher, flight credit and gift card, including a helpful internal grid that the carrier’s employees use.

American has been replacing paper vouchers with ‘trip credits’ which allow payment towards an adult passenger fare on American and American Airlines codeshares only. These can be used as partial payment towards a ticket (topped off with a credit card) or partially used towards full payment of a ticket, with residual amounts emailed to the passenger. Trip credits can also be used to book yourself an extra seat.

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President Biden Demands Respect From Airline Passengers

by Gary Leff

Sep 10 2021

President Biden has issued an order telling the TSA to double fines for passengers refusing to wear masks on planes and other forms of transportation. This is purely symbolic, because fines – which start at $250 for a first offence – are rarely imposed let alone paid.

The President demanded that air travelers show some respect and that this is the reason for the increased fines.

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Now We Know Why United Airlines Was So Bold With Its Vaccine Mandate

by Gary Leff

Sep 09 2021

President Biden on Thursday announced sweeping national vaccine mandates, which are still to be written. Timing remains uncertain, but federal workers will have to be vaccinated. So will federal contractors. And most health care workers. And anyone employed by a company with over 100 workers (though weekly testing will be an alternative). Federal workers, of course get a 75 day grace period and only then will begin the ‘standard H.R. process’ such as it is.

This announcement puts a move made by United Airlines just the day before in a new light. United Airlines was specifically called out as an example by President Biden.

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