Category Archives for Airlines.
There are going to be lawsuits, but call me crazy, maybe it makes sense to wait for more information to come out about the incident in order to form a cause of action. There’s a rush to the courthouse, though, for lawyers to lock in client representation:
Boeing has had production issues, and deliveries of their Boeing 787-9s to American have been delayed. But American couldn’t have flown these planes even if Boeing could have delivered them. That’s because the business class suites hadn’t been signed off on by the FAA, on something of a technicality. Again.
The airline’s stock will be wiped out, $795 million in debt will be reduced, and the new owners will inject $350 million into the carrier. That won’t last long.
The message of the CFO at United is that you can’t reduce everything to a variable in a spread. You have to make investments that seem to make sense in order to differentiate the product and drive consumer loyalty in order to attract a revenue premium as well as co-brand credit card spending.
Delta CEO Ed Bastian defended the experience of the pilots at their regional carrier and says “there is one level of safety” at Delta. Is that accurate?
Customers used to get frustrated, knowing where their bags were but running into a brick wall with their airline trying to get that information used. That’s changed, with airlines jumping on the bandwagon of adopting new technology deployed by Apple that lets them take in tracking data and use it to recover bags.
The Southwest Airlines activist investor looking to load up Southwest’s balance sheet with debt, turn the airline into a clone of underperformers American Airlines and JetBlue, and shed staff, is expected to increase its ownership in the carrier. In addition, more of the airline’s leadership is being pushed out.
The “heart” of Southwest Airlines died today, with the company’s first layoffs in corporate history.
They did these via videochat, not in person, banning everyone from headquarters. And the messaging isn’t “we’re in an existential fight for our lives” it’s “we’re not optimizing financial performance.”
This is a pretty good offer for Southwest and for customers. They’ll give you a free companion to travel with you for about two months if you book just two one way flights right away (and use them for travel in the next six weeks).
Bilt Rewards Vice President Richard Kerr wrote up an in-depth explanation of travel portals. Bilt uses Expedia for members who want to redeem their points at 1.25 cents apiece towards paid travel, whether it’s hotel or airfare or other bookings.
American Express, Chase, Citi, and others have travel portals and it’s common to use a third-party ‘white label’ service like this.
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 »
