Category Archives for Airlines.
Hands up, don’t shoot. American Airlines “ordered passengers on a flight from Los Angeles to Miami on Wednesday to put their hands on their heads” for the last 45 to 60 minutes of the flight “because of a potential security threat.” On arrival in Miami, the plane was boarded by law enforcement with machine guns.
One man was arrested, but that wasn’t the end because when passengers were finally permitted to deplane they were held in the terminal.
The Emirates frequent flyer program has just introduced award redemption on its partner JetBlue. It’s easy to get Emirates points. And the award prices for JetBlue’s ‘Mint’ business class are surprisingly reasonable. You can often book JetBlue business class seats for more than one third fewer points than JetBlue would charge in its own program.
Airlines are rewriting history, pretending they used bailout money to be prepared to fly when they really pocketed it for themselves. And the ‘really bad stuff’ that would have happened without bailouts wasn’t ever true.
The narrrative matters because we’re going to see airlines back at the public trough again in the future. Investors know their downside is limited because taxpayers will always be there. And that’s abhorrent.
I’m not sure how much value ‘fun’ safety videos actually ad. Do they get us to pay attention? Perhaps, but I’m not sure they get us to understand, internalize, and remember the safety information. Perhaps we focus on and remember the non-safety elements to the exclusion of the information that’s more important.
I love creativity in these videos anyway. They’re fun, they make me smile. Queer Eye (née Queer Eye For The Straight Guy) doesn’t do it for me per se, I’m beyond reclamation, but I applaud the attempt nonetheless.
Occasionally things have gotten out of hand, and passengers have become violent. There’s a much greater proportion of leisure passengers now, and first-time passengers, than ever before (“every airline’s passengers are Spirit Airlines passengers now”) and we’ve seen video of shocking confrontations that became violent against cabin crew. Those are so shocking, in part, because they are also still so unusual.
However the American Airlines flight attendants union is telling its members that if things escalate to create an unsafe situation, getting law enforcement involved may not be enough. They should get the FBI involved.
The different payment methods American Airlines has, and the rules for each, can be complicated.
Here’s a deep dive on using trip credits and how American is adding features to make them easier to work with.
The airline “assigned [its] vice president of customer service to be his personal liaison” and Gitomer asked that VP for a consulting job. Chiames said, though, that it was his “verbal abuse of our employees.. [which] have left employees in tears” that led to the banning.
Gitomer, for his part, “described himself as a demanding, but not abusive, customer. He remembered only one time that he made an employee cry, several years ago.”
Club Europe isn’t very good on British Airways, it’s generally a coach seat without extra legroom and just a blocked middle seat, plus food. There’s less seat pitch than on Ryanair. Since the spoon is really the main differentiator between the classes on this class-conscious airline, ‘cutlery is for club class.
After years of cost cuts, one of the airline’s labor leaders has had enough. On July 2, the President of the flight attendants’ union Los Angeles crew base wrote an email to CEO Doug Parker and President Robert Isom that’s going viral within the company.
It’s not a return of hot meal service, but first class passengers on flights of 900 miles or more will again see something more than a shrink-wrapped turkey and cheese sandwich starting July 14.
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 »
