Airlines

Category Archives for Airlines.

Wide Open Award Space For World’s Best Business Class – Mideast, India, Even Africa

by Gary Leff

first class beds
Jul 21 2022

Qatar has one of the best business class product in the world in its ‘QSuites’. These are revolutionary suites with doors and movable partitions that allow two and even four passengers to travel together in their own space.

Right now there’s fantastic award availability at the end of the booking window. You can use this for travel from the U.S. to Doha and beyond to the Mideast, India, the Maldives and even to Africa. And you can book it with American and Alaska miles or points transferred from American Express, Chase, Capital One, Citibank or Bilt.

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American Airlines Could Face Chapter 11 Bankruptcy

by Gary Leff

Jul 21 2022

Three successive rounds of taxpayer bailouts and the recovery of the airline industry should be good news for American Airlines, as it is for other U.S. carriers. However American remains in a more precarious financial position than its competitors and has less maneuvering room than other airlines do facing the headwinds that are on the horizon for the industry.

American’s financial statements show liabilities that are greater than their assets and they face four major challenges that could make things worse.

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Delta Will Give Free Inflight Internet To All Domestic Mainline Passengers

by Gary Leff

delta seat back life
Jul 21 2022

In March 2019 Delta CEO Ed Bastian said the airline would offer free wifi within “a year or two.” They needed to ensure they had enough bandwidth for everyone to use it, since not charging would mean far greater usage.

Delta tested just how much people used wifi when it’s free and found that their Gogo inflight internet couldn’t handle it without degrading service. The airline has since moved to retrofit planes with ViaSat internet which works faster. And now, according to an internal memo, they’re ready to go.

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Alaska Airlines Is Introducing Permanent Electronic Tags For Do-It-Yourself Checked Bags

by Gary Leff

Jul 19 2022

Alaska Airlines is introducing permanent luggage tags you can affix to your bags that speed up the check-in process. Passengers with these tags won’t have to print bag tags at the airport. Instead they will “activate the devices from anywhere—their home, office or even car—up to 24-hours before their flight through [Alaska’s] mobile app.”

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How Might Monkeypox Affect Travel?

by Gary Leff

Jul 18 2022

The numbers of known cases almost certainly are massively understating the number of actual cases at this point, even asymptomatic infection possibilities aside. Nonetheless the number of infections in absolute terms is almost certainly very small, so most people are very unlikely to come into close physical contact with someone that’s infected.

I do not consider myself at risk at this time and I am not taking precautions, although I regularly update my priors based on new information. As the facts change, I can change my mind. However the precautions taken earlier in the pandemic, such as extensive housekeeping, not only appeal to my previously-held preferences they seem better-suited to monkeypox and numerous other pathogens than to Covid-19.

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Risks Booking Award Travel On Partner Airlines

by Gary Leff

alaska airlines
Jul 16 2022

Everything works well when routes don’t get cancelled and schedules don’t change in ways that make connections impossible. But when you are working through one airline to travel on another, things can go wrong. Here’s what to do about it.

A recent award travel horror story shared to Reddit seems like a great opportunity for flagging some of the risks and complexities in travel and how to handle them.

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Great Things Are Happening In The Air, Special Moments Trump The Misery

by Gary Leff

Jul 15 2022

Air travel connects the world. People fly for a purpose. They’re visiting friends and family, attending to important business, and connecting. Sometimes they connect with each other, through the randomness of seat assignments. And sometimes it’s the little connections with employees along the way, because it’s one human helping out another and taking a moment engage as people.

Seven moments shared to social media with photos or video stood out to me in just twenty four hours, showing that in a single day there’s a lot of good in the air, and on the ground.

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