Category Archives for Airlines.
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.
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.
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 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.
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
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.
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.
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.
When the federal transportation mask mandate was overturned by a judge, and the administration decided not to seek an immediate stay of the order but instead to cease its enforcement, airlines began lifting their mask rules.
Southwest Airlines didn’t just send out a statement to customers and to the press that they were lifting their mask rules, Southwest Airlines dispatch sent a message to pilots Monday evening letting them know that the rules had changed mid-flight.
At last week’s American Airlines ‘Crew News’ employee meeting, before taking questions CEO Robert Isom gave a presentation. He lays out that the airline wants to be reliable and make money. They’re focused on Dallas and Charlotte, building out their network, and operating reliably with “simplicity” and at low cost (efficient).
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 »
