Category Archives for Airlines.
Passengers in American Airlines first class couldn’t believe what they were seeing when a flight attendant barricaded herself in the galley and called police mid-flight. Officers met the plane on arrival—and burst out laughing when they heard why.
Cathay Pacific just threw open the doors to its ultra-rare first class cabin—two JFK-Hong Kong awards you can still grab before they vanish.
The Department of Transportation ordered Delta and Aeromexico to dismantle their partnership—ending one of the most powerful cross-border alliances in aviation. But behind Delta’s new courtroom fight to save it is at best a calculated move to delay the inevitable and rewrite the rules that once let it collude legally with the foreign carrier.
Spirit Airlines is in bankruptcy for the second time in less than a year. A lot of ink has been spilled over the reasons why, but I do think a part of it is something simple everyone is missing.
Finnair just canceled 40 flights because seats washed with water lost their critical fire-resistance certification, suddenly making them unsafe to fly. Thousands of passengers are now stranded after this bizarre cleaning mistake grounded the airline’s planes.
American Airlines quietly made a smart move, dropping its awful $16 steak sandwich from coach buy-on-board and replacing it with a new Southwest-style turkey wrap. It’s served with a street-corn salad and churro bar—and against all odds, it’s actually decent.
Delta isn’t just flying passengers anymore — it’s flying financial strategy. The airline now designs parts of its route map around credit card economics, with flights that may lose money on tickets but generate millions through Amex-driven spending and loyalty revenue.
September’s airline punctuality rankings are in, and Delta once again leads the nation in on-time performance. American, meanwhile, continues to slip—further widening the gap between the two carriers.
After 9/11, airline CEOs met with the White House to shape the future of air travel — and to quietly tilt new laws to their own advantage. What followed was less about safety than strategy, as rival carriers fought to design security and subsidy rules that would put each other out of business.
Former Delta chief Richard Anderson says U.S. antitrust policy aimed at protecting consumers actually crippled competition. By blocking Continental-Northwest from merging we wound up with fewer airlines. And we may be seeing the same thing play out today.
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 »
