Category Archives for Airlines.
Delta is demanding more from customers without giving them any more in return, and rewarding them with a currency that it worth less than what customers can earn elsewhere. And their bet is that a small subset of cardmembers will increase their spend so much as to offset those who cancel and the bulk of cardmembers for whom the changes aren’t designed to incent spend.
Open seating on Southwest Airlines means Lord Of The Flies… or sometimes Thunderdome. That doesn’t work for everyone, but I actually like it.
Journalist, former Presidential speechwriter, and private pilot James Fallows complained on twitter about his United flight that was delayed just under 24 hours – and he attributes the decision to delay rather than cancel the flight to an anti-consumer conspiracy.
His followers on twitter are wrongly led to believe that this is so passengers aren’t entitled to a refund. Nothing could be further from the truh.
After Delta Air Lines announced it was going all Keyser Söze on its elite frequent flyers, and acting like the master manipulator who leaves no loose ends, even if it means betraying those who trust him, there’s a clear opening for competing airlines.
American Airlines launched service between New York JFK and Delhi in November 2021. They ran into diplomatic roadblocks getting permission to fly over Russia, leading to more circuitous routings which meant that the flight would occasionally have to divert and crew would time out.
Then, once Russia invaded Ukraine, U.S. airlines weren’t permitted to overfly Russia at all. That’s made service to India tougher for United, too.
Delta Air Lines paid 13 passengers on an overbooked Boston to Rome flight up to $4,000 each – plus covered their hotel rooms for the night – to get them to give up their seats.
The flight had already boarded when an agent came on board still looking for volunteers, and she ran an auction. You can hear her raising the price to $3,500 begging someone to “take one for the team” and “go shopping.”
Don’t talk during the safety demonstration, expect flight attendants to help with your bags, or poke flight attendants.
American Airlines CEO Robert Isom was named the world’s best airline CEO. That may be debatable, but the airline’s board has awarded him a rich compensation package potentially worth over $26 million.
It’s not April Fool’s or Backwards Day, yet reportedly ultra low cost carrier Frontier Airlines is considering adding first class to its planes – and Sun Country is considering an airport lounge in Minneapolis, at a time when Delta with its Minneapolis hub is kicking passengers out of lounges.
There’s a shot across the bow of aviation – an intellectual case is being made for airlines to revert to the status of public utilities. Sitaraman’s upcoming book can be seen as a starting gun for arguments over regulating the airline industry. The arguments for this used to be unserious, by folks like Robert Kuttner. That’s changing, and with a direct line to people in power.
People who care about not making air travel worse need to wake up to the threat, though there is also much we should be doing that would make air travel better.
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 »
