Category Archives for Airlines.
Usually flight crew stick together. Here, a United flight attendant saw their colleague’s behavior as so far out of bounds that they encouraged a passenger to report it. United’s discipline of other flight crew suggests this might get some management attention. However, it might carry even more weight coming from another employee than from a customer.
The most famous Delta Air Lines flight attendant is Katherine Hinton, the former Katherine Lee, known as Deltalina. It was the finger wag in a safety video 17 years ago – “smoking is not allowed” – that did it.
Airlines should charge for guaranteed overhead bin space. Most tickets come with a ‘license to hunt’ for space, rather than overhead bin space proper. And customers who believe they are entitled to bring a carry-on bag on board get stuck gate checking their bag and wasting time at baggage claim at the end of their flight.
Two American Airlines passengers tried to force their way onto a flight from Miami to Cancun since they were running late. It appears they rushed the gate.
Their family of four had seven total carry-on bags but were told by the gate agent that their children had to carry their own bags – parents could not help! – or else the bags would have to be checked.
They checked in at the ticket counter and showed their ID. The agent saw that it was an ID issued in the state they were connecting in – suggesting they might be stopping their journey there. The agent said they suspected the passenger planned to skip the final flight segment and warned them they would be banned from American Airlines if they did not take the connection.
Some of the routes Delta has been running have been ‘intra-Texas’ flights that seemingly make no sense, other than they are short flights using cheap outsourced planes. Cities include Harlingen, McAllen, and Midland, Texas. Harlingen and McAllen seemed like super-strange choices at first, since they’re just 45 minutes apart from each other by car.
Will they be bankrupted by this American Airlines mistake? What’s it going to do to their credit score (that’s some hefty utilization!)? Will American Express close down their account? Will other card issuers?
Flight attendants union head Sara Nelson was the guest on the Airlines Confidential podcast this week. She shared the story of getting involved in union activism after 9/11 and said that “the biggest complaint I heard from flight attendants was ‘I didn’t feel seen, I didn’t feel respected’” and said that people didn’t realize that there were unions then. By her own standard then, she’s failed her members.
An American Airlines customer bought a $1,000 ticket and later refunded it. American returned $100,000 instead.
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 »
