Category Archives for Airlines.
A Delta Air Lines passenger reported that they made it to Detroit on Friday, but couldn’t get the last mile home to Cincinnati. There were strong thunderstorms in the area in the evening and that was wreaking havoc with flights. Delta, though, didn’t blame weather and say there was nothing they can do. Instead they rebooked passengers on short-distance final segments using their partner Lyft.
In recent years, Delta has offered the worst customer service by phone with the longest hold times for customers, although of course all airlines have challenges. Fortunately there is a workaround for all of this!
When airlines partner with third parties so that customers earn miles for transactions outside of travel, we normally think of the non-travel partner renting the frequent flyer program to help sell their product. The partner buys miles and is paying for the reward they give to customers, for access to the airline’s customers, and for use of the frequent flyer program’s intellectual property.
But there’s a benefit to the loyalty program beyond the direct revenue for the miles sold.
Delta flight 1482 from New Orleans to Salt Lake City was cancelled Friday evening after being told to reject takeoff when another aircraft crossed the taxiway. The Delta Airbus A321 was already accelerating down the runway for its takeoff roll.
A new billboard along Interstate 35 near Fort Worth highlights website SouthWoke.com calling on Southwest Airlines to ‘shut up’ about liberal politics and focus on flying.
KLM is out a few hours early with their April Fool’s joke: the world’s first airline to offer a beeping ‘recline alert system’ to notify the passenger behind you that you’re about to encroach on their space.
Air Canada has pushed off expiration once again, though not permanently. They’ve just announced that Aeroplan miles will not expire until September 30, 2024. Of course activity in an account extends the validity of miles past that, so you’ll want to make sure to have some.
British Airways is seeing low customer satisfaction scores and testing increased flight attendant staffing on its worst-performing routes to see whether or not that moves the needle.
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.”
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 »
