Category Archives for Airlines.
American Airlines flight attendants have been working towards a new contract since before the pandemic. The union says they’re far apart, and that they have filed for federal mediation. That’s the first step towards a strike.
Airlines publish their schedules nearly a year in advance, but the schedules that they publish are just placeholders. They are selling tickets for flights that are not what they intend to actually fly.
While American Airlines has been selling its summer schedule for 8 months, they only finalized what it would actually be last weekend.
Thursday was a tough day for Southwest Airlines employee culture. Flight attendants picketed the airline, while pilots walked out – again – on an employee rally, though possibly to their own detriment. They missed an incredible performance.
Some airlines just give call priority, others give dedicated agents, and there can be a tradeoff. If dedicated agents are overwhelmed sometimes you just want to get through to someone. During actual high call volume periods an airline might roll over its elite members on hold to the top of the general reservations queue.
Such dynamic call handling makes sense. At American Airlines, though, Platinum Pro members’ calls get priority but will now roll over into general reservations instead of to dedicated elite agents for international bookings according to an internal airline memo.
Phil Washington, head of the Denver airport, has been nominated to become FAA Administrator by the Biden administration. His experience in aviation is limited, Democrats concede, but his backers argue that he is a good manager of public sector bureaucracies.
That management is in question based on his involvement in a corruption scandal from his time at L.A. Metro, and a discrimination lawsuit involving his leadership in Denver. However it is neither his skills nor his management that have the potential to derail the nomination. It is his 24 years of military service.
Spirit Airlines flight 259 from Dallas to Orlando diverted to Jacksonville, Florida on Wednesday afternoon as smoked filled the cabin of the aircraft when the battery of a passenger’s electronic device caught fire in an overhead bin. Once on the ground, 10 passengers and crew were hospitalized.
Smoke also reportedly filled the cockpit. A retired fireman assisted cabin crew in dousing the flames. Meanwhile, air traffic control gave the flight’s captain a direct routing to get on the ground.
Lufthansa’s flight from Austin to Frankfurt hit severe turbulence on Wednesday, diverting to Washington Dulles airport and sending seven passengers to the hospital.
Passengers on board the Airbus A330 were screaming on board flight 469 as they were taken by surprise and food and personal items went flying through the cabin.
Southwest Airlines is out with a double elite qualifying offer on paid tickets, allowing award travel to count towards status as well, and pairing it with increased status-earning from spend on a Southwest Airlines credit card all between March 1 and May 31, 2023.
Traditionally a pilot at a regional airline might start out earning less than $50,000 per year, but get hired on by a major airline and that goes up quickly into the six figures, and well over $300,000 for senior captains flying widebody aircraft overseas. Some earn over $400,000.
Yet we’ve heard a lot of complaining by pilots recently. Contracts are open for negotiation at American Airlines, Southwest, and United.
With the window shutting to earn status for the new year closing on Tuesday night, customers were calling in. This is a new system (Loyalty Points) and a new cutoff (February 28, not December 31). And telephone hold times became excruciating, as numerous customers shared to social media. Wait times stretched in some cases over 5 hours.
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 »
