Category Archives for Airlines.
This has to be the most absurd fee ever charged by an airline. Startup carrier Breeze Airways, founded by the creator of JetBlue and several other airlines around the world, will hit you with a $27 “technology development fee” when buying a ticket. The reason why – and how to avoid it – will really take you beyond the looking glass of the U.S. airline industry.
United Airlines hasn’t been showing award seats that are being offered by their Star Alliance airline partner Air New Zealand. Air New Zealand publishes the award availability, and it can be seen by other airlines. But you won’t find the seats at United.com and the airline’s agents will tell you there’s nothing available.
Fortunately United claims this is a glitch, rather than intentional, and one they hope to resolve quickly.
Australia business class awards are some of the toughest around. That was true before the pandemic. It’s even more true now, with flights full generally and with not all service restored yet. For instance, American Airlines isn’t flying to Sydney again yet. Add in that Australians were banned from even leaving their country for a year and a half, and demand has been unprecedented.
I managed to score Air Canada business class saver seats for my trip Down Under in June, but that was one of a couple of times when availability seemed to pop up as a glitch. If you want to travel in a premium cabin to Australia it is very very hard right now. But there is one way. And some of you will find this amazing.
ZIPAIR is a Japanese low cost carrier owned by Japan Airlines. It launched during the pandemic with a hub at Tokyo Narita airport and flights to Singapore, Seoul, Bangkok, Honolulu and Los Angeles. San Jose flights are planned at the end of the year. They fly 4 Beoing 787-8 aircraft leased from Japan Airlines with 8 business class and 272 coach seats.
Right now a business class roundtrip might run $4000 between Los Angeles and Tokyo, while ZIPAIR is selling business class for just $1643 – or less.
Vietnam Airlines launched new service from San Francisco to Ho Chi Minh City (SGN) during the pandemic. They’ve been eyeing non-stop service to Los Angeles as well – but they’re not alone. In fact a surprising carrier may be first to launch the service, and receive two years of subsidies from the Los Angeles airports authority.
There are two airlines reportedly with Memorandums of Understanding in place to launch non-stop LA – Vietnam service, both may be surprising but talks with one have reportedly heated up.
Europe has strong airline consumer protection rules, at least in theory. In practice even when an airline owes you money for a delay, it’s tough to collect. We’ve seen customers literally send bailiffs to airline offices to collect and airlines even cancel flights to avoid having their aircraft impounded over $300.
Now they may even eliminate the protections in EU regulation 261 (2004) which requires airlines to compensate passengers between €250 and €600 cash for flight delays of over 3 hours, for cancellations, and for involuntary denied boardings due to overbooking.
I started helping readers book their award travel with an award booking service, Book Your Award, in 2009. Ten years ago Steve Belkin came on as my partner. Steve literally wrote the book on large scale mileage exploits. He’s been famous in mileage circles for 30 years, we’ve known each other for 20 years, and for a decade now he’s helped redeem billions of miles.
I can’t do it all myself. There’s too much at stake. And there are very few people that I trust to deliver at the level I’m committed to. Steve, my partner and friend, has decided to step back from award booking after 10 years.
As a passenger this can be understandably scary. Fortunately the glass window panel didn’t actually break. There was no loss of cabin pressure. No one had to put on oxygen masks. The plane was safe to continue to its destination. Southwest did, however, give the passenger a $300 travel credit for the experience.
The deplaning process of an aircraft turn, IndiGo says, could be cut almost in half through use of this third door. That seems a stretch. But every minute matters to profitability – squeezing out an extra flight, getting flights out on time, or even just ensuring all flights are scheduled at a time the passenger wants to buy.
Airlines are one of the most heavily unionized industries in the country. That works out well for customers and investors at Southwest, but less well at other airlines. Delta, the other historically strong performer, is mostly non-union. Their largest unionized work group is their pilots. Delta’s dispatchers are also unionized.
The biggest flight attendants union is working hard to change that – even as they publish data that 97% of flight attendants they represent at United are deeply unhappy.
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 »
