Airlines

Category Archives for Airlines.

Airlines Are Asking The Government To Send Unruly Passengers To Prison

by Gary Leff

Jun 21 2021

U.S. airlines, represented by their lobbying group Airlines For America, have jointed the biggest airline unions in calling for the Department of Justice to prosecute passengers who cause flight disturbances.

Notably though 2300 of the 3000 reports of unruly behavior the FAA has received this year have been related to masks. Isn’t it striking that the airlines and unions don’t recognize that three quarters of the incidents, then, could be eliminated by lifting the mask mandate – that no longer makes any sense in any case?

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When Will The American Airlines Operation Recover From Meltdown?

by Gary Leff

Jun 21 2021

American Airlines cancelled 3% of its flights on Sunday, and about 2% already today. Cancellations appear to continue, and I’d guess will last through the end of the month until we hit the airline’s planned 1% pulldown of capacity for the first half of July.

If you’re flying a Boeing 737 especially this hits you hardest, since that’s the fleet type that’s been hardest hit by pilot shortages.

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American Airlines Operational Meltdown Getting Worse

by Gary Leff

cockpit with pilot
Jun 20 2021

On Saturday morning I was first to cover the ongoing issue American Airlines is having mass-cancelling flights. They logged about 125 cancellations on Saturday after a big cancel day on Friday. That’s about five times as many flight cancellations as United Airlines and Delta combined.

Today is worse than yesterday with 176 cancels already. That’s nearly 50% more than Saturday. And there are already about 100 cancels on the books for Monday.

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‘Basic Business Class’ Fares Are Bad Business For Both Customers And Airlines

by Gary Leff

Jun 19 2021

Emirates started selling ‘basic business class’ fares last year. Qatar Airways came out with this, restricting access to lounges and to advance seat selection on the cheapest business class tickets. And the latest entrant into this game is Finnair, and their restrictions are absolutely brutal.

What’s really interesting here is whether airlines can make Basic Business Class work as a way to generate more revenue. While Basic Economy has caught on and had mixed results, it’s going to be a lot harder to do with Business Class and that strategy will probably cost an airline more than it’ll generate in incremental revenue. Your cable television bill helps explain why.

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American Airlines Is Cancelling Scores Of Flights Due To Lack Of Pilots

by Gary Leff

cockpit with pilot
Jun 19 2021

American Airlines has cancelled over 100 flights already today. The most common reason is ‘flight crew unavailable’. Many other flights show cancelled due to ‘operational decision’ which appears to be giving that flight’s pilots to another aircraft (in other words, also ‘flight crew unavailable’). In contrast, as of this writing United has cancelled eight flights today and Delta has cancelled two.

The issue appears to be concentrated on the Boeing 737 fleet. American’s schedule seems too big for the crew they have available, especially since they’re only midway through the process of bringing inactive pilots back online.

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The Difference Between Scheduling Flights For Customers And Scheduling For Operations

by Gary Leff

Jun 19 2021

American Airlines is launching service between Austin and Washington Dulles in August. This flight is absolutely ideal for me. I live in Austin and in the Before Times my most frequent destination was Washington DC – a minimum of once a month, and often twice.

But the flight times are terrible – scheduled to allow a single plan to operate the route, rather than being scheduled for the business travelers who would actually take the flight.

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The President of AAdvantage Wants To Replace Award Charts With A Real Estate Website

by Gary Leff

Jun 18 2021

The President of the American AAdvantage program says they’re intending to get rid of award charts. He offered that they’re working on a replacement like “a real estate website that shows you how many people have bought a property in a given area and for what price range, as well as a ticker for how many people are looking at a specific property right now.”

The more I think about this model, and this analogy that he offers, the worse it sounds for customers.

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