Category Archives for Airlines.
Southwest Airlines made four announcements about the Rapid Rewards program today. The best change is announcing something that’s been in effect for two years – priority boarding for Companion Pass companions. The worst change is more points required to earn a Companion Pass, but that won’t apply to the airline’s credit card holders. On net these are good updates to know, but not ones to be concerned about.
American Airlines CEO Robert Isom is right – the U.S. visitor visa system is embarrassing, and it’s costing our economy. But more than that, it hurts our soft power and importance on the world stage.
On average visa wait times were reported last month to be an average of 247 days – a 14x increase over the 17 day average before the pandemic. It’s expected that visa wait times will cost the U.S. 6.6 million visitors in 2023. This is a huge failure of federal government competence.
Most passengers would have been beyond annoyed at the hassle, even though it was beyond the airline’s control. Yet the passengers on this flight were downright pleasant. And it’s because even though the delay wasn’t something American Airlines could prevent, how they managed the delay was in the very capable hands of the airline’s captain – who organized a pizza party for everyone on the plane.
During the American Airlines third quarter earnings call on Thursday, Cowen and Company’s Helane Becker asked what percentage of customers were actually paying for premium cabin seats.
Chief Commercial Officer Vasu Raja answered somewhat ambiguously at first, but then gave numbers for their domestic route network.
The airline took delivery of new Boeing 787-9 aircraft with the old seats, even after the start of the Polaris project. Seats can have a long lead time. However now, at the end of 2022, United has stopped operating 787-9s with old seats.
Just as United is preparing to decide on new business class seats, they’ll finish putting Polaris seats in the planes which operate their longest flights, like Sydney and Singapore.
There’s a moment at the start of any Singapore Airlines flight in first or Suites class, after you first board. A flight attendant approaches you and offers you champagne. If you accept they will stop, and with a mix of smugness and pride, ask “would you prefer Dom Perignon or Krug?” That classic question is about to change.
The American Airlines electronic submission was on letterhead that did not include the carrier’s mailing address at 1 Skyview Dr, Fort Worth, Texas. It also did not list.. a fax number.
As the government explains, 14 CFR § 11.81 requires listing “[y]our name and mailing address, and, if you wish, other contact information such as a fax number, telephone number, or email address.” Since the FAA doesn’t know where to find American Airlines, and didn’t think to ask the agency’s own American Airlines Certificate Management Office, they declined to consider the request to place doors on business class seats.
American Airlines now allows passengers to check bags to their final destination even when their connections are exceptionally long. They used to only allow bag checks all the way through on connections under 12 hours. That’s now been increased to 16.5 hours, and this new rule applies not just to American Airlines travel, but also when checking a bag in with American Airlines and connecting onto one of their airline partners.
Etihad has been posting odd clues in advance of a Wednesday announcement. One of those, discussed below, surely had to be trolling given the past speculation about the carrier joining Star Alliance. I do not know what tomorrow’s announcement entails, but I am told officially by Star Alliance that it is not their joining the global partnership.
Regional carrier Mesa Airlines is rumored to be considering Chapter 11 bankruptcy, or as they say Chapter 22 because this would be the airline’s second trip to the courthouse. They last used the bankruptcy process to shed aircraft obligations in 2010.
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 »
