Category Archives for Airlines.
After a federal judge struck down the transportation mask mandate some airlines are saying masks are still required on board.
United Airlines, for instance, told employees that the mask mandate is still in effect regardless of the ruling, pending notification to the contrary by the federal government. Alaska Airlines has taken a different stance publicly stating that masks are now optional.
Turkish Airlines offers great business class award space on most of its flights between the U.S. and Istanbul, even for four or more passengers, through end of schedule and especially end of 2022 and early 2023. Turkish serves more countries than any other airline they’re a great way to connect to see much of the world. Their Boeing 787s have their best business class product.
Congress has certainly shown itself capable of voting on masks, and could have voted to give this power to CDC. It did not. However this federal district court ruling may not be the legal end of the discussion, and the mandate will likely lapse and the case becomes moot before reaching ultimate adjudication.
Iberia business class awards are wide open for two passengers between New York JFK and Madrid. There’s quite a bit of space in November and December, but things really open up for January and February 2023.
Chris Matyszczyk is known for taking my airline leaks and sensationalizing them. Here, though he takes word of American Airlines business class seats coming with doors on the airline’s new delivery Boeing 787-9s and uses that to pull his very best Christopher Elliott, which is to say taking a travel story he doesn’t understand and doing his best to turn it into an allegory about class warfare and socialism of the North Korean variety.
According to the commentator, American sees that they’re overbooked on the day of travel, delays that flight for a long period so passengers make other plans, and then they no longer have to involuntarily deny anyone boarding.
There’s a lot of competitive pressure now to do more than just Polaris for United, especially as that carrier pursues a strategy that seeks to attract premium business. And the planning cycle for a new business product, from selection to production to installation across a fleet, is many years-long. So it’s not surprising that United is now planning for a new business seat with doors.
It’s political fear, ultimately, and not scientific judgment that dictates when the mandate gets lifted. So the relevant question is whether two weeks from now the Administration’s fear of the midterms will outweigh their fear of ‘being wrong’ about the direction of the pandemic and being blamed for lifting a restriction that did little to alter the course of the pandemic in the first place.
Alcohol is about to return to American Airlines coach on Monday, and the carrier’s flight attendants union – the Association of Professional Flight Attendants – has demanded that a two drink limit be imposed on passengers.
In addition to better meals (and more improvements starting today even that I covered last week), a new business class suite coming and new premium economy seats, and elite status that’s easier to earn, American Airlines is testing free high speed wifi for passengers over the next six weeks.
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 »
