Airlines

Category Archives for Airlines.

American Airlines CEO Brags About Efficiency Of New Torquemada Seating

by Gary Leff on April 24, 2022

Apr 24 2022

One of the biggest mistakes American Airlines has made in the past several years is its new domestic product. They crammed more seats into planes, removed seat back entertainment screens, and now passengers board thinking they’re on old aircraft.

Ex-CEO Doug Parker greenlit the Torquemada-style seating program and didn’t even try his airline’s product until it was flying for about six months. It turns out they didn’t even build a mockup of it first to see how it would work for passengers and employees. New CEO Robert Isom has previously described needing to make the best of it, since they’re stuck it with it.

4620 American Airlines Elite Status And Redeemable Miles For Using Uber

by Gary Leff on April 23, 2022

Apr 23 2022

At the start of April I wrote about an offer to earn 465 American AAdvantage miles – and elite status miles – per Uber trip up to 4 times via SimplyMiles. That’s 1,860 elite status miles for taking Uber and charging the trip to a Mastercard registered on the SimplyMiles site by May 31, 2022.

I now see that I have two other Uber offers as well, which I’ve now activated.

Now That Masks Are No Longer Required On Planes, It’s More Important For (Many Of) You To Wear One

by Gary Leff on April 23, 2022

Apr 23 2022

The federal transportation mask mandate has been suspended. Voluntary mask wearing varies by region of the country. Flying out of Austin and New Orleans this week perhaps 5% of passengers were wearing masks, perhaps a little bit more but definitely less than 10%.

What I didn’t understand was that a majority of people who were wearing masks were wearing either cloth or medical masks. Those aren’t protecting the person wearing one, and for several reasons it’s more important for many people to protect themselves on planes than before.

Is The American Airlines Alliance With JetBlue Toast?

by Gary Leff on April 22, 2022

Apr 22 2022

During its first quarter earnings call, American Airlines was asked about the consumer benefits of the tie-up with JetBlue. And the airline also got questions about how JetBlue’s bid for Spirit Airlines would affect it’s ability to keep the JetBlue partnership, since the government opposes the arrangement and will have a say in JetBlue’s merger attempt as well.

American Airlines CEO Says They’re Turning Away From Focus On D0

by Gary Leff on April 22, 2022

Apr 22 2022

American Airlines has focused like a laser on “D0” – exact on time departures – over nearly all other priorities. That hasn’t always made them a reliable airline, but it’s led to numerous dysfunctions.

American Airlines CEO Robert Isom signaled in his first earnings call that he’s shifting the focus of the airline from this metric to a broader set of priorities that will operate reliably while also taking care of customers.

American Airlines Considering New Narrowbody “Collins Aurora” Business Class Seat

by Gary Leff on April 21, 2022

Apr 21 2022

This represents innovative thinking on the part of American to balance their desire for a top shelf product (business class suites with doors on a narrowbody aircraft) without taking up a lot of real estate on the plane

Despite Appeal Of Court Ruling, 6 Reasons The Air Travel Mask Mandate Won’t Return

by Gary Leff on April 21, 2022

Apr 21 2022

The Justice Department has begun it’s slow-walk of a half-hearted defense of the rule. They’ve filed a notice of appeal with the District Court. Here’s the entirety of the filing.

CDC Plans To Try To Re-Impose Mask Mandate

by Gary Leff on April 20, 2022

Apr 20 2022

The CDC and the Administration has bungled this. They should have taken the win of having the mandate end without their having to end it. Now the best they can do is file an appeal, without having the order stayed, and then let the appeal become moot with the expiration of the rule. Worse would be to litigate this aggressively with the ensuing chaos of trying to re-impose the mandate.

How The Biden Administration Is Poised To Win By Letting The Mask Mandate Expire

by Gary Leff on April 19, 2022

Apr 19 2022

The smart political move is to let the CDC say they’ve examined hospitalization data and the state of new variants and the mask rule can expire, subject to new developments that might warrant its reinstatement. And the people in charge at the White House aren’t dumb.

On Monday Passengers Were Told Midflight That They Could Take Their Masks Off. Was This Fair?