Category Archives for Airlines.
A group of Frontier Airlines passengers banded together to rent a van for an overnight drive rather than endure travel on the airline, after their initial 650 mile flight from Orlando to Knoxville was cancelled last Sunday.
The airline told them the next flight they could take would be two days later, and so they decided 10 hours with Hertz would be far better than 48 hours to their destination with an air carrier. And they took to TikTok to document the journey.
On Saturday I wrote about wide open United Airlines award space nearly every day from Los Angeles to London in business class for four or more passengers this spring and summer.
Business class awards to Europe during peak season have been tough. It’s especially hard from the West Coast. And harder still when you’re looking for more than two seats. So this was huge. But it gets even better. There’s amazing United Airlines saver award space on numerous routes to Europe.
In 2017 Air Canada violated the ‘three hour tarmac delay rule’ by not allowing passengers to get off the aircraft, and the Department of Transportation has issued a $100,000 fine. But they’re learning that miles given to customers give airlines a 60% discount on DOT fines.
Business class awards to Europe during peak season have been tough. It’s especially hard from the West Coast. And harder still when you’re looking for more than two seats. Fortunately right now United has 4 or more business class saver awards available flying Los Angeles – London Heathrow nearly every day this spring and summer.
A woman went online for the internet’s judgment on whether she was in the wrong to fly first class over Thanksgiving with her three year old. Another passenger tried to get them kicked out of first class before the flight even began, asked her to go back to coach during the flight, and hurled profanity at her at the end of the flight.
Gastroenterologist Shida Haghighat flew American Airlines and was surprised to see the snack she was served had expired. In fact, it’s dated from before the start of the pandemic.
While the pretzels may taste stale, you’re in coach, in some sense maybe that’s to be expected!
United is holding an event on Tuesday with Boeing at the aircraft manufacturer’s facility in South Carolina. They are expected to announce a major order for Boeing 787 long haul aircraft.
These new planes will come with the same economy and premium economy seats United currently uses on their Boeing 787-10 aircraft, however business class with be a new seat – ‘next generation Polaris’ – which offers suites with doors.
Etihad Airways parked its 10 Airbus A380s during the pandemic, and its CEO said they’d likely never fly again. That’s sad because their best passenger experience was on this aircraft. Indeed, many airlines had their best seats and amenities on the world’s largest passenger jet.
Despite appearing that the planes would never comes back the airline has announced their return, and the Etihad A380 features some of the best seats in the world.
We’re entering another Covid wave. Peak will probably come in mid-January. In the meantime there’s a lot more Covid in the U.S. We can see that in case numbers, but most cases go undetected. Perhaps the best data source is wastewater measures. Flu and RSV are rising at the same time!
There’s been a lack of clarity for years over whether customer experience matters, or just operational metrics, and whether American is trying to be a premium carrier or a Spirit and Frontier competitor.
So I’m not surprised to see an internal memo going out to flight attendants telling them not to worry about missing catering, customers just want to depart exactly on time and that crew does passengers a disservice when they ensure long flights have food on board.
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 »
