Airlines

Category Archives for Airlines.

American Airlines Blames The CARES Act For Lack Of Catering On Dallas Flights

by Gary Leff

one world plane
Jun 26 2021

The CARES Act and successor spending bills gave $79 billion from U.S. taxpayers to airlines. But American Airlines is blaming the laws for its inability to catering flights out of Dallas – Fort Worth with beverages and snacks.

At a recent employee question and answer session, a recording of which was reviewed by View From The Wing, a flight attendant asked CEO Doug Parker about catering problems in Dallas and Charlotte. Parker responded by blaming catering companies who have been unable to to hire employees.

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American Airlines CEO: Why Passenger Mask Incidents May Rise This Summer

by Gary Leff

Jun 26 2021

At a recent American Airlines employee question and answer event, a recording of which was reviewed by View From The Wing, a flight attendant asked CEO Doug Parker about frequent inflight incidents with passengers. Parker acknowledged, “much of it is due to the masks, I know.” Parker predicts that the conflicts over masks “may get even harder between now and September 13th.”

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TSA Will Teach Flight Attendants How To Beat Up Unruly Passengers

by Gary Leff

Jun 24 2021

When David Dao was dragged off of a United Express aircraft and bloodied, the carrier outsourced the dirty work to Chicago Aviation Police.

The TSA, though, has a program to teach flight attendants how to do this themselves. It’s been suspended during the pandemic. But the TSA announced today that they are bringing it back because of the rise of onboard incidents, mostly centered around masks.

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How Credit Card Rewards And Business Travel Influence The Value Of Miles

by Gary Leff

credit cards
Jun 23 2021

In the June 23 Airlines Confidential podcast, former Spirit Airlines CEO Ben Baldanza lays out his framework for the circumstances under which to expect airline frequent flyer programs to devalue. He sees strong airline credit card performance as working against devaluation, which I think is incorrect, and he sees the future of business travel doing a lot to determine the value of miles.

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Frontier Airlines Ditches ‘Covid Recovery’ Surcharge After Just One Day Of Publicity

by Gary Leff

Jun 23 2021

It took just one day but Frontier Airlines is dropping its ‘Covid Recovery’ surcharge. It had explained the extra fee tacked on to tickets as covering the cost of cleaning (as though their planes aren’t expected to be clean otherwise) and personal protective equipment for employees (as though airline safety wasn’t the airline’s responsibility).

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American’s Pilot Scheduling System Seems To Be Making Flight Cancellations Worse

by Gary Leff

cockpit with pilot
Jun 22 2021

American Airlines has been cancelling hundreds of flights a day for several days. They don’t have enough pilots, especially Boeing 737 pilots, to operate the schedule they published.

However it appears that the system American Airlines uses to try to find pilots to pick up overtime and crew open trips may be standing in the way of getting some of its pilots to cover trips.

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