Category Archives for Airlines.
One of the major drawbacks of the ‘low cost carriers’ has been that they didn’t set up the ability to put you on another airline when your flight cancels. However Spirit Airlines and Frontier, which are merging, have been flipping the script. And Frontier may have the best cancelled flight approach of any airline now.
Qatar has one of the best business class product in the world in its ‘QSuites’. These are revolutionary suites with doors and movable partitions that allow two and even four passengers to travel together in their own space. Right now there’s fantastic award availability booking for October through January.
According to internal American Airlines documentation issued to coincide with the official launch of ‘Loyalty Points’ as the new way that frequent flyer tier status is earned, customers will no longer be called elite. Instead “[t]he term “Status” replaces Elite.”
United Airlines has asked the government for authority to fly Washington Dulles – Cape Town, South Africa three times a week using a Boeing 787-9, effective November 17, 2022. They already offer scheduled service from Newark to both Cape Town and Johannesburg. But they may not be allowed to do this.
Lufthansa sees first class as crucial to their brand positioning, but they quite correctly don’t see a market for it on all of their flights. They’ve offered the cabin on more routes than where it made sense because they didn’t want multiple configurations of the same plane, and have wanted the flexibility to deploy an aircraft across different routes.
I wrote three years ago that I expected them to continue offering first class, just with fewer seats, and “could imagine offering just one row of first” on new Boeing 787s and Airbus A350s. The A350 is getting first class, will debut next year, and is expected to be just one row.
Sabre also provides passenger service and operations for Aeroflot. Those are not being halted. Sabre has the ability to ground Aeroflot and is not doing so.
JetBlue is bringing back fresh food to its premium cabin, and bringing back liquor to its flights starting March 15. American Airlines already brought back food to domestic first class, but its coach cabin remains dry. The airline has said it won’t bring back alcohol until the federal mask mandate is lifted.
When Southwest Airlines starting serving drinks again last month, that seemed like it would mean more pressure on American than JetBlue’s move. After all, both airlines are Dallas-based and Southwest is the traditional largest airline in the U.S. domestic market.
Delta poached JetBlue’s Head of Revenue and Planning in January. Scott Laurence was JetBlue’s architect of the “Northeast Alliance” with American Airlines before becoming Delta’s Vice President of Network Planning.
It was a shocking move. The knowledge he was taking with him of American-JetBlue strategy sent shockwaves. It’s the alliance between American and JetBlue that sets up the two to compete against Delta. The Department of Justice, in part at Delta’s behest, is suing to stop it. And Delta poached one of the key insiders who could help in that fight. And then… in February Laurence was gone from Delta.
JetBlue flight 2465 from Buffalo to Fort Lauderdale was delayed four hours on Wednesday morning when the aircraft’s co-pilot was flagged as possibly impaired as he went through the security checkpoint.
Police were called and the man was taken off the plane and given a breathalyzer test. He registered a blood alcohol content of .17.
President Biden is announcing tonight during the State of the Union address that the U.S. is closing its airspace to Russian aircraft.
This isn’t nearly as significant to Russia as the closure of European airspace, though it does mean that Russian carriers won’t be flying to the U.S. which was already made more difficult by the closure of Canadian airspace. But check out what Russian airlines now have to do in order to fly to places like Cancun.
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 »
