Category Archives for Airlines.
Spirit Airlines has been expected to merge with Frontier Airlines, in a deal announced two months ago. But today JetBlue stepped in with an offer 40% higher than Frontier’s to acquire Spirit.
Here, JetBlue explains its rationale and its plans to employees in an internal communication that was shared with View From The Wing.
Two months ago Frontier announced a deal to acquire Spirit Airlines creating a powerhouse ultra low cost airline.
Over the last several days rumors became clear that JetBlue would announce Boston – London Heathrow service today, using slots they’ve just leased from Qatar Airways. Well, there’s no announcement yet but they’ve front-run their press release by loading the flights into the schedule. And it’s actually more than expected.
Two business class award seats are available a majority of days that the flight operates, between its launch October 5 and the end of the published schedule at the beginning of March.
Long telephone hold times are the new normal when trying to reach an airline. They shed reservations agents during the pandemic. At American Airlines reservations agents were moved to the airport. And today’s travelers – predominantly leisure customers – call the airline more than business travelers did.
Add in weather and other problems and hold times spiral out of control. This past weekend we were seeing 5 and even 9 hour hold times to reach an American Airlines agent. Fortunately there are workarounds.
Over the weekend the operation of Southwest, American, Spirit, JetBlue and Delta all melted down. There was bad weather in Florida, and some IT issues, but things were systematically worse than one would expect even given these issues. United was relatively spared.
Getting through to airlines was nearly impossible. Delta has recently made it harder.
To much fanfare American AAdvantage announced that its elite members would have access to JetBlue extra legroom ‘Even More’ seats if available at check-in.
In fact it is not available to AAdvantage elites at check-in 24 hours prior to departure, it is only available at the airport when booking codeshares.
I’m a frequent critic of American Airlines but I was very impressed with their domestic catering earlier this week. I wrote separately about breakfast on a 1500 mile flight. I’m now returning to talk about dinner on the way back. It was an improvement over what American Airlines was serving pre-pandemic.
I’m genuinely thrilled to know that I won’t go hungry on a flight if I don’t have time to eat running to the airport or running between connections.
American Airlines ticket credits from during the pandemic have been extending out to September 30, 2022. Flight credits from cancelled tickets are also have their expiration dates extended. And, apparently, the process is taking up to a week. American has taken access to these credits offline from member online wallets until April 8.
Paris – Houston at the saver level should run 49,500 miles but if you’re starting or ending beyond Paris with a European connection that price can go even lower. I’ve had great luck booking this flight, in fact I even took it myself in March (as a booking for 3 passengers in business).
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 »
