Category Archives for Airlines.
There are more seats flying today than there were before the pandemic but flights are still below 2019 levels worldwide, and we’re certainly not back to trend.
The current guidance is that food for sale is only available on “select flights” that are “over 1,300 miles” and not to expect there to be anything left by the time a flight attendant reaches your aisle because “limited quantities are available.” All they even sell is a fruit and cheese plate ($11), roasted almonds ($8) and cool ranch doritos ($5). That’s going to change.
You can only buy tickets in-person at limited hours, but you can’t buy tickets during those hours. That means there’s no real option to buy them in person, which means that booking online isn’t a choice customers are making, and therefore the web booking fee is not optional. Yet Frontier still excludes these charges from their domestic airfare excise tax calculation.
One of the unique benefits of lifetime status at United Airlines is that the designated companion of the million miler inherits their status. This benefit is changing.
I’ve confirmed that American Airlines is moving 20% – 30% of its IT operation to Hyderabad, India. There’s been some exaggeration online, claiming that ‘all’ of IT is moving. And I haven’t been able to substantiate that it reaches fully one-third or 40%, but it is clearly significant.
Choosing to undertake prohibited behavior doesn’t get a free pass simply because the intended audience consists of members of a protected class. And the flight attendant has said that wasn’t true anyway, she was doing the twerk for herself, to ‘celebrate the end of her probationary period’ and because she was bored during a delay.
JetBlue has made no secret of its plans to find suitable partners, and during its third quarter earnings call St. George said “it certainly could be with American” again.
Then during January’s earning’s call, they confirmed they were in talks for a partnership in line with the anti-trust ruling. Now their CEO is speaking out about the benefits.
Crashing the economy is a bad thing! But it’s not equally bad in all ways. In fact there are always some beneficiaries. It just so happens that one of those is likely to be the value of airline miles.
A viral TikTok trend has emerged called “airport theory” that advises arriving at the airport just 15 minutes prior to departure – the claim is that you can still make it through security and board before the doors close.
Southwest Airlines just laid off 15% of its corporate staff, letting workers go for the first time in its history. But they’re not done with cost-cutting. They revealed inside the company today that they will be closing two flight attendant bases – in Austin and Fort Lauderdale. In January, the company cancelled employee rallies. Maybe these weren’t the best way to engage staff and drive the culture, but there’s not a new plan to replace them either. And the messaging was that this is part of cost-cutting in the important “fight to return to excellent financial performance” which they plan to do by “enhancing efficiencies, and capturing value throughout the Company.” Southwest CEO Bob Jordan Southwest isn’t done cutting personnel costs, though. In a memo to employees today, the airline announced that they will eliminate…
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 »
