Category Archives for Airlines.
Qatar Airways Privilege Club is dropping ‘QMiles’ and adopting Avios as its currency in late March, with points transferring 1:1 into the new program. This is potentially huge for earning points in Qatar’s program, and may be a huge win for members of other Avios programs like British Airways Executive Club and Iberia Avios as well.
Sara Nelson, head of the AFA-CWA flight attendants union, is an influential labor leader with juice in the Democratic Party. While she was instrumental in securing bailouts for the airline industry, she doesn’t always get what she wants – Nelson was an advocate for a ban on leisure travel during the pandemic.
Nonetheless, Nelson’s AFA-CWA is pushing for an extension of the federal transportation mask mandate which currently runs through March 18. And she’s joined by the union representing cabin crew at American Airlines.
American Airlines is suspending or delaying Seattle – London and Bangalore, Dallas _ Santiago and Tel Aviv, Miami – Sao Paulo, and Los Angeles – Sydney. They’re blaming delays in the delivery of Boeing 787-8s for this, a result of production and regulatory issues faced by the airframe manufacturer.
They’ll get compensation from Boeing – covering money they’d have made with these planes, and they don’t even need to fly! – but the truth is that the lack of available aircraft is at least as much American’s fault, maybe more so than Boeing’s.
You may have to wait in long lines (with all other passengers) to get the room – if you can get an employee to help you, and if the systems they use have any rooms to offer. And when you finally get the room that’s being offered, it may not be up to your standards. Here’s a better way.
27 year old Miami-based American Airlines flight attendant Tori Panopoulos has breast cancer and is scheduled for a double mastectomy on March 1. She has a GoFundMe and is looking to raise $10,000 because of the time she’ll need to take off for treatment.
The Attorney General of Texas is suing the Biden administration to overturn the transportation mask mandate. He’s got strong legal arguments, but the timing is suspect. He’s waited until it’s close to no longer mattering, while running for re-election and when he’s under indictment.
Singapore Airlines is offering business class saver awards on its non-stop flights between the U.S. and Singapore out of New York JFK, Newark, and San Francisco for at least two passengers through much of the year.
You’ll find the space form now through end of schedule, so you can pick whatever time works best for you and the vagaries of immigration-restricting authorities to visit Southeast Asia.
No matter what your position on continued masking on planes throughout the Omicron wave – that it no longer makes sense to extend the federal transportation mask mandate which currently runs through March 18, 2022.
Betting markets now give 3-1 odds that the mask mandate will be gone before the election. Prediction markets are frequently more reliable than expert commentary because well-informed observers put real money behind their arguments (it’s their revealed expectations, rather than cheap talk).
Any airline with the resources can buy a large flat seat and pay for good catering. Creating a true lifestyle brand experience creates a moat against competition – the opposite of the commodity mindset that most airlines have adopted. Rather than being unprofitable, first class therefore carries the potential to be the most profitable since it’s the most de-commoditized. And in a world where so few do it, it’s easy to get a head start.
Bill Franke is a name that should make airline passengers shudder and yet it’s hardly known. He ran America West and hired Doug Parker to be his cost-cutting CFO.
Franke is responsible for turning Spirit Airlines into an ultra low cost carrier. He divested there and bought Frontier Airlines, turning it into a Spirit clone. And now he’s merging the two. And another one of his airlines is looking to offer transatlantic service.
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 »
