Category Archives for Airlines.
After paying flight attendants not to work during the pandemic, thanks to government subsidies, American Airlines plans to fly more than 90% of the seats they flew domestically in the summer of 2019 this summer, and 80% of the seats they flew internationally.
American recalled all of their flight attendants from furlough to work these flights Even then that’s not enough.
Delta Air Lines has plenty of cash. They never furloughed any employees. Travel is recovering and they’re expecting to return to profitability this summer. They’re even making large bonus payments to management employees.
Against this backdrop, Hunter Keay from Wolfe Research asked Delta CEO Ed Bastian during the airline’s earnings call whether they would turn down ‘PSP3’ the third government airline bailout that will offer them about $3 billion in exchange for continuing to pay employees through September.
Mary Schlangenstein who covers airlines for Bloomberg asked CEO Ed Bastian during Delta’s earnings call about Southwest’s no-notice 6.5% devaluation of Rapid Rewards points yesterday and whether they’d considering doing something similar.
Bastian offered SkyMiles as a contrast to Southwest, “we’re not considering that, and we’re very excited about the value [of the SkyMiles program].” Wait, wut?
If it’s true that we shouldn’t trust loyalty programs, and that ought to become our base case, then the way that information gets out to the public is precisely by shaming loyalty programs when they behave badly. Rather than shrugging our shoulders at no-notice devaluations, it is important to shout it from the rooftops so that members know to build lack of trust into their base case.
An airline needs to know how much an aircraft weighs for takeoff and fuel burn purposes, and estimates work but those estimates need to be reliable.
The Department of Transportation approved the American Airlines-JetBlue alliance in New York and Boston. Those airlines had to give up takeoff and landing slots in New York, and commit to increase their flying (or lose more slots).
However it’s a new administration and other airlines aren’t happy with the increased competition JetBlue and American will provide. So the Department of Justice is ramping up a probe of the deal, taking another bite at the apple for special interests.
You’re going to see a lot about a new CDC-released study that suggests blocking middle seats is important protection for air travel during the pandemic. However the coverage is going to be very misleading.
All that the new research tells us is that being a bit farther away from someone infected with the virus is probably better than being right next to them, which we already know.
Over the weekend, Vivo Y20 cell phones and accessories which were made in Guangdong, China and headed to Bangkok caught fire as they were about to be loaded onto an aircraft in Hong Kong.
Effective immediately and without notice, Southwest Airlines has started requiring 6.5% more points for flight redemptions. The change comes as Southwest celebrates its 50th anniversary this week. Award tickets used to cost 78 points per dollar of base fare and now cost 83 points per dollar.
I first wrote about Bask Bank and the Bask Savings Account at the beginning of 2020. I’ve been saving and earning with them for a year and the mileage-earning strategy has proven-out.
That’s not really a surprise. I’ve been a customer of Bask Bank’s parent, Texas Capital Bank, since July 2003. But it’s great to see that the value proposition has remained constant throughout the past year’s turmoil, and even looks more attractive compared to today’s alternatives.
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 »
