Category Archives for Airlines.
Houston-based Avelo is a startup. They’re scheduled to operate 630 flights this month, an average of just 21 a day, using 8 Boeing 737s. The same number of flight attendants voted to form a union as Avelo has planes.
When we see dirty planes we wonder whether the things we can’t see are being being handled well. When we see broken planes we wonder whether maintenance we can’t see is being handled well. The connection isn’t always true but reasonable.
One of the odder dirty plane photos I’ve seen on twitter lately is paper towels stuffed into the aircraft ceiling on Delta. Condensation was leaking, and this is the airline’s solution to keep it from dripping on passengers. They didn’t want to take a plane out of service and cancel flights, and it wasn’t a mechanical issue that raised safety concerns. But, as the passenger posting on twitter notes, they also weren’t… changing the paper towels between flights.
On Monday passengers got into the act, joining other crewmembers, in making a Southwest Airlines flight attendant’s last trip before retirement special.
On the last flight this crewmember was scheduled to work, the “other flight attendants had her hide and literally everyone on the plane helped decorate” the aircraft to celebrate while she wasn’t looking.
Delta is going to start paying flight attendants for time spent boarding aircraft to coincide with moving up boarding time on domestic mainline narrowbody flights by 5 minutes (although the pay increases apply to flight attendants working all flights).
Starting June 2 Delta will begin boarding for domestic narrowbody aircraft 40 minutes prior to departure. And they’ll take off prior to scheduled departure time more often, too.
Delta has made a move that’s going to be a huge hit with employees, and engender jealousy across the industry. Flight attendants are getting a raise, and it’s coming in the form of addressing a real sore spot in compensation. This could keep unionization at bay, while trolling employees of their biggest competitors.
JetBlue’s pilots have formally voted ‘no confidence’ in the airline’s Senior Vice President for System Operations, after miserable flight operations and terrible recovery efforts in recent weeks and months. Here’s what that means.
Singapore Airlines joined Star Alliance 22 years ago. You’d expect that when they look to feed passengers to and from their U.S. flights they’d work hand-in-hand with United. Except that’s not what’s happened over the years.
At an employee question and answer session with executives after the American Airlines earnings call on Thursday, one crewmember asked, “Now that we’re serving alcohol and making food available for purchase in the main cabin, will alcohol be free to customers in Main Cabin Extra again? And also do we plan to expand our food for purchase options?”
In fact, alcohol is already free of charge in coach for passengers seated in Main Cabin Extra as well as Executive Platinum and Concierge Key members. And there are going to be new food options for sale in coach, but this program won’t start until after summer.
After the American Airlines first quarter earnings call on Thursday, employees and executives – led by CEO Robert Isom – gathered for aa discussion of the ‘State of the Airline’. A recording of this event was reviewed by View From The Wing. Here are 7 things that I learned, apart from items that I’ve reported on separately.
Employees have complained for several years about being confused over the kind of product they’re supposed to offer – whether they’re a premium carrier, or an ultra low cost one – and what that means fro the service they’re supposed to deliver to customers.
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 »
