Airlines

Category Archives for Airlines.

The American-JetBlue Alliance Can’t Even Assign Seats. Here’s The New Procedure.

by Gary Leff

May 13 2021

A week ago I wrote about why codeshares are great for airlines, not customers, and why you should almost never book one. There are edge cases, but in general they’re a hassle – whether because you need to get rebooked due to a schedule change or even just have a seat assigned.

What prompted me to write about this is that American Airlines, despite its close alliance with JetBlue in the Northeast, is unable to assign seats on JetBlue flights. American’s workaround wasn’t working, so now there’s a new one.

Continue Reading »

U.S. Airlines May Start Weighing Passengers At The Gate

by Gary Leff

May 13 2021

U.S. airlines may need to start weighing passengers in order to comply with FAA rules. For safety reasons, carriers need to calculate an aircraft’s weight and balance, and it has to be within allowable limits for the plane. However the assumptions they’ve been using for passengers are outdated. Americans are getting fatter, and the federal government wants airlines to find out how much fatter their passengers have gotten, at least for smaller aircraft.

Continue Reading »

Book Iberia Awards To Europe At Old ‘Glitch’ Pricing

by Gary Leff

stock airline bed
May 12 2021

The good news is Boston and New York – Madrid remain 34,000 miles each way in business class. Iberia Plus is a transfer partner of both Chase and American Express, and members with Iberia Plus accounts with activity can move their British Airways points over. This can be desirable because Iberia’s transatlantic awards on their own planes are so inexpensive and fuel surcharges aren’t significant.

Continue Reading »

American Airlines Just Completed A Major Milestone Of The US Airways Merger (Yes, 8 Years Later)

by Gary Leff

delta and american plane tails
May 12 2021

Did you know that eight years into the American Airlines-US Airways merger, not all work groups were on a single system, and the merger wasn’t ‘complete’?

American was one airline to passengers long before it was a single airline to employees. The airline’s systems for tracking aircraft maintenance were still separate – until last week.

Continue Reading »

Easy Star Alliance Gold Status Match

by Gary Leff

first class seats
May 12 2021

How about this for worst timing ever? Right at the start of the pandemic Star Alliance airline TAP Air Portugal launched a huge marketing campaign for its 75th anniversary, to make their frequent flyer program relevant for Americans. They offered miles for sale at less than a penny each and an elite status match program.

Members who took them up on the status match, fortunately, had that status extended. And it turns out that the status match offer is still available.

Continue Reading »

Thanks To Russia Hack, American Airlines May Start Flying Widebodies Full Of Jet Fuel Into Charlotte

by Gary Leff

baggage truck by plane
May 10 2021

American is working through whether it’s feasible to operate large widebody aircraft – Boeing 777s – from other hubs on their flights to Charlotte. They’d gas up the 777s, which can fly to Asia, with full tanks of fuel in places like Dallas. Then they’d siphon out the gas for flights that need to depart from Charlotte.

Continue Reading »

Russian Pipeline Hack Is Already Causing Flights To Schedule Extra Stops

by Gary Leff

baggage truck by plane
May 10 2021

Russian hacking group DarkSide appears to be responsible for the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack which caused the shut down of the pipeline which supplies over 2.5 million barrels per day of oil to the Southeast especially but also to the northeast.

We are already seeing scheduled re-fueling stops for the longest flights out of Charlotte. American Airlines has scheduled its Charlotte – Honolulu and Charlotte – London flights with fuel stops for Tuesday.

Continue Reading »