Category Archives for Airlines.
While there was much talk in 2021 about AAdvantage devaluations, they committed not to change their award chart as they rolled out Loyalty Points as a new way to earn elite status. Now the deferred chickens may come home to roost – risking the value of the AAdvantage program, the revenue streams for co-brand partners, and the quality of AAdvantage-backed debt.
The saga of one United Airlines customer’s lost bag, tracked down using an AirTag, is the story of one of these third party delivery services. The airline turns it over, and basically loses track of the bag, assuming that their contractor will do their job and make the delivery.
Southwest Airlines experienced an operational crisis greater than any in its history – and this is an airline that managed to operate a four aircraft schedule with just three planes, and developed the 10 minute turn – in order to survive.
It didn’t just cancel flights broadly across its system for the holidays, it kept doing it day after day, unable to recover effectively. That ruined the holidays for more and more people, compounding the issues – and hits to their business.
A family of three was traveling Delta from Oakland to Salt Lake City on an overbooked flight. The gate agent offered them $8,000 apiece – $24,000 in total – to take another flight. They felt like they’d won the lottery. But then Delta reneged on the offer. The family didn’t get the vouchers, and they didn’t get to take the flight.
People are no longer afraid of Covid-19, in the limit. Travel overall has boomed. Restaurants filled up. But office towers did not.
Here’s one chart showing work from home has become permanent. And that means managed business travel will be permanently impaired.
An employee of American Airlines wholly-owned regional carrier Piedmont Airlines was sucked into the engine of an American-owned Envoy Air Embraer 175 aircraft that had arrived in Montgomery, Alabama from Dallas – Fort Worth. The individual was a baggage handler.
There’s a rather odd take on the Southwest Airlines meltdown, that it was caused by capitalism or, in Senator Bernie Sanders’ formulation, caused by stock buybacks to benefit shareholders at the expense of passengers.
The Southwest Airlines pilot union sent its members a note in the aftermath of their airline’s meltdown, diagnosing the core issues and challenges at the company. It’s a mix of correct analysis and hobby horses.
Tom Nekouei, 2nd Vice President of SWAPA, mostly dumps on former CEO Gary Kelly, who retired early in 2022, and correctly flags that the company has deferred technology investment for decades.
Spirit Airlines flight NK1095 from Philadelphia to Orlando on December 26 cancelled, after a delay of several hours. Passengers in the boarding area were not at all happy, and Spirit gate agents have… their own way of communicating with customers. They let everyone know there would be refunds, or rebookings, but passengers would have to wait several days if they wanted another flight from Philadelphia. And don’t expect Spirit to pay for hotels!
This video of the announcements is… really something.
Delta SkyMiles has been known to status match a ham sandwich. No matter what proof of your current status with another airline you’d send in, they’d approve temporary SkyMiles status and a challenge to keep that status. That’s part of how they work to poach the best customers of their competitors.
The easy matches may be tightening up a bit at Delta Boulevard. At least they may be working to make sure the status you’re offering with another airline to justify the match is at least real.
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 »
