Category Archives for Airlines.
At the start of Wednesday’s United Airlines earnings call, CEO Scott Kirby outlined four reasons he believes United is positioned to win relative to competitor airlines.
American Airlines is known for being particularly stingy with international business class award space on its own flights. I redeem AAdvantage miles more than any other airline currency, but almost always for flights on their partners. So when there’s good space for valuable awards on American Airlines itself, I try to highlight it.
At a town hall event in Miami on Thursday, American Airlines President Robert Isom took questions from employees. If video of the event was posted internally, it was apparently taken down quickly. However I’ve been able to review the discussion, and every single question and challenge was on the pending vaccination requirement for employees of federal contractors.
My impression watching Isom matches what I’ve heard elsewhere: that management is clearly scared for their operation, knowing that they have so many thousands of unvaccinated employees and that passions are running so hot.
Qantas announced the release of ‘millions’ of award seats as Australia re-opens. So far Australians are expected to be able to leave their country next month (and return!) with rules for what they must do on arrival varying by state. There’s no announced timeline for visitors to come to Australia, but there’s reason to be hopeful.
The American Airlines flight attendants union is telling employees that unlike United, American will offer a way for those who obtain a religious or medical exemption to vaccination to continue working.
Air Canada Aeroplan has a very easy and generous status match offer for U.S. frequent flyers. Match your status, and then a single roundtrip will let you keep the status through 2022.
For Americans – and anyone outside of Canada – the spend requirements for earning status are doubling. Aeroplan has allowed those whose primary address is outside of Canada to earn elite status with half the requirements that Canadians face. For 2022 they’re eliminating this easier path to status.
If you’re a Delta frequent flyer you know how hard it is to get customer service. It’s taking the airline hours to answer phone calls even for their Diamond SkyMiles members, and months after they promised they had the issue under control.
Delta is a ‘full service’ carrier and things can be even worse with the ultra low cost set.
In the Airlines Confidential podcast last week, former Spirit Airlines CEO Ben Baldanza – talking about vaccine requirements and dismissal of employees who don’t get vaccinated – offered that it’s reasonable to exclude pregnant woman. The line he follows about it being inadvisable for pregnant women to be vaccinated is dangerous.
The ‘new Alitalia’ – ITA Airways – doesn’t have elite frequent flyers yet, and they’d like some. So they’re offering a status match to elites in most programs. So if you would like elite status you just need to e-mail them.
The Taliban is getting a harsh lesson in the limits to Islamic economics as it deals with international air service from Kabul, now that they’ve returned from the role of rebel force to that of managing institutions of governance. Price controls lead to scarcity.
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 »
