Category Archives for Airlines.
In a move that should make it even easier to buy Southwest Airlines tickets they’ve announced that their credits will never expire. All Southwest Airlines flight credits active starting today – however you’ll see a ‘placeholder’ expiration date of December 31, 2040 with tech updates later in the year eliminating the expiration date and process entirely.
Yesterday Spirit Airlines shareholders rejected an agreement to sell to Frontier with JetBlue offering far more money.
Now Spirit’s board has agreed to sell to JetBlue under the same terms as the New York-based carrier’s last offer – a price 40% higher than Frontier was offering at the time it was made a month ago.
JetBlue wants to buy Spirit for parts – gates, slots (though they’d divest many of those), pilots and planes. And they’re willing to pay $400 million for the chance to get the deal to close in the face of government opposition.
Meanwhile the most likely way to get regulatory approval is to trade the American Airlines joint venture, which the federal government is also opposing. If they can make that deal quickly, they can presumably have Spirit.
On Monday July 25 Delta flight 9923 from New York JFK to Accra, Ghana headed out over the Atlantic and then diverted back due to fuel issues. The flight had already been delayed from the day before, reportedly due to a sick pilot, and was operated as a special extra section.
However the second attempt at the flight took a turn for the worse. A couple of hours out over the Atlantic the captain announced that the Boeing 767 had a fuel issue, and that they would have to return to New York. Emergency crews met the plane on arrival.
The airline, which generally mishandles more bags than competitors, is making process improvements so that bags are more likely to make connections – especially at their Dallas – Fort Worth hub.
Lufthansa is being forced to cancel nearly all of its flights starting on Wednesday as ground crew prepare to strike. The job action is expected to cripple the German flag carrier’s operations at Frankfurt and Munich, lasting through the weekend.
The U.S. government imposes numerous rules to keep commercial airline pilots scarce. This is done under the guise of safety, but the rules don’t actually have anything to do with safety.
The problem is that more available pilots means less leverage for pilots unions, and since union contracts determine who flies which aircraft, which routes, and which schedules – and therefore how much a pilot gets paid – largely based on seniority, a higher retirement age while good for older union members is bad for younger ones.
The captain said he couldn’t control the plane during takeoff. He veered left and hit a runway sign. The first officer grabbed controls and the plane climbed out. They lost a $100 million aircraft, but all of the passengers were safe. And both pilots still fly for American Airlines.
At the internal company ‘state of the airline’ meeting after Thursday’s earnings call (a recording of which was reviewed by View From The Wing), Chief Operating Officer David Seymour argued that it doesn’t make sense to upgrade baggage tracking technology until their airline partners have done so first. And CEO Robert Isom says that lagging technology at some of their hubs makes it harder to do so.
Does anyone know how Trip.com is able to sell Southwest Airlines tickets, since other consumer travel sites aren’t permitted to do so? What’s going on here? I never even knew the flights were for sale on this site until now.
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 »
