Airlines

Category Archives for Airlines.

Secretary Pete Buttigieg Estimates The Value Of Miles, Strands Himself Mid-Trip

by Gary Leff

Jul 02 2022

Secretary Pete Buttigieg says he was taking a connecting flight Friday evening and the airline (which he doesn’t name) cancelled his connection, so he insisted on refunding the segment. If things happened the way he describes, he stranded himself mid-trip in a city that wasn’t his destination, and he doesn’t ell us how he wound up making it the rest of the journey.

Along the way he offers commentary on the value of frequent flyer miles, which he estimates are worth ‘between 1 and 1.5 cents apiece’ (he’s right!) and settles on a value of 1.2 cents for the particular miles he was offered.

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Emirates A380 May Have Flown 13 Hours With A Hole In Its Fuselage

by Gary Leff

Jul 02 2022

A three year old Emirates Airbus A380 from Dubai to Brisbane may have flown for 13 hours with a hole in its fuselage.

Flight EK430 took off from Dubai International Airport and that may be the point at which the aircraft received damage. However it wasn’t until approach into Brisbane that flight crew advised air traffic control that they suspected “they blew a tyre on takeoff” and asked for emergency response services to on standby as they arrived.

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When Frequent Flyer Programs Are Worth More Than The Airlines That Own Them

by Gary Leff

Jun 30 2022

El Al is spinning off its frequent flyer program at a $500 million valuation. The entire airline, including the frequent flyer program, has a market cap of less than $180 million. They’re not alone. American’s frequent flyer program was appraised at up to $30 billion (and they borrowed $10 billion against it) while their market cap is less than $9 billion.

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Frontier’s Deal To Acquire Spirit Airlines Has Problems

by Gary Leff

Jun 29 2022

Spirit Airlines sent me their release indicating that tomorrow will not be the day that shareholders vote on whether to sell to Frontier Airlines.

Instead the shareholder meeting will be adjourned and reconvened on July 8. Spirit wouldn’t do this if all their ducks were lined up to gain approval for the Frontier deal that their board has endorsed.

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Spirit Airlines Shareholders Should Take The JetBlue Deal. You Should Hope They Don’t.

by Gary Leff

Jun 29 2022

JetBlue’s proposed deal to acquire Spirit Airlines is better for Spirit shareholders than Frontier’s is. Spirit management supports the Frontier deal, and it will probably be approved. JetBlue is offering 40% more for Spirit Airlines than Frontier is. With Spirit’s shares falling to slightly below Frontier’s offer, the market thinks the successful suitor will be Frontier, not JetBlue.

However a Frontier deal for Spirit is actually better for consumers, even though JetBlue’s product is better than the one offered by either airline.

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Virgin Atlantic Introduces Minimum Award Space Guarantee, Double Miles Awards For Gold Elites

by Gary Leff

virgin upper class seat
Jun 29 2022

Virgin Atlantic is launching two positive changes for its Flying Club frequent flyer program. They’re guaranteeing to release a minimum number of award seats when loading a flight into the schedule, and they’re allowing Gold elite members to book any seat they want that’s for sale as an award ticket by spending double miles.

Somewhat counterintuitively the introduction of double miles awards without capacity controls are actually the bigger deal here for the program, I think.

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