Airlines

Category Archives for Airlines.

United Airlines Had To Track Down Passengers They Let Skip Immigration On Friday

by Gary Leff

Sep 03 2021

Friday afternoon’s United Airlines flight from Dubrovnik to Newark was delayed about an hour and a half on departure. On arrival passengers were let off the aircraft and staff opened a door into the terminal instead of directing passengers to immigration and customs.

The mistake was caught quickly, and as one passenger on the flight put it, the airline worked to “round up all of the people that headed off into the terminal.” Passengers were then held “until they figure out what to do next.”

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How Would You Feel Boarding This American Airlines Flight?

by Gary Leff

Sep 03 2021

A passenger passes along a photo from on board Thursday’s American Airlines flight AA3145. The SkyWest Bombardier CRJ-700 (registration N716EV) was headed from Phoenix to Santa Rosa.

This 18 year old CR7, ex-Atlantic Southeast and ExpressJet, moved over to Skywest in December 2018 and sat in storage until Feb 2021. And the interior looked like it should never have been taken out of storage.

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How Well Do Masks Work When You Travel?

by Gary Leff

Sep 02 2021

Perhaps the greatest challenge with Covid-19 has been its infectiousness prior to presenting with symptoms. In generally people with symptomatic Covid are most infectious in the two days prior to showing symptoms and the three days after.

There’s a lot of debate over how effective masks are, and to conflate the different types of masks. What’s important is to continually look at new evidence and update priors when warranted.

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Another Go-To Route For Wide Open Transatlantic Award Space Using American Miles

by Gary Leff

first class cabin
Sep 01 2021

At the point where they’re willing to take 60,000 miles the award, is it that hard to make seats available and call them saver?

Instead these are ‘web specials’ which means that there are no changes permitted. For simple itineraries that’s no big deal because American eliminated all cancel and redeposit fees for awards (for all members, this is no longer a benefit restricted to Executive Platinum and Concierge Key members). That means you can cancel the ticket, get your miles back, and book a new ticket.

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Here’s What It’s Like To Travel Today, According To People On Social Media

by Gary Leff

Aug 31 2021

If you want to experience truly crazy, read the comments on airline Facebook posts sometime. If you want a slightly higher level of discourse, but still get a sampling of what it’s like for the median traveler, reader “tweets & replies” on an airline’s twitter account.

Sometimes when I have a few spare moments I’ll scroll through American Airlines, United and Delta just to see what’s out there.

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American Airlines Moved To Single Agent Boarding Before They Were Ready

by Gary Leff

Why Charlotte Needs Another American Airlines Admirals Club
Aug 30 2021

Single agent boarding is a disaster. The one overwhelmed agent can’t manage boarding and last minute upgrades, clearing last minute standby passengers, and helping customers change seats – let alone answering questions from nervous flyers.

Perhaps even more importantly they can’t manage all the tasks that are part of departure while also scrutinizing carry on bag sizes (American is asking them to now charge to gate check oversized bags) and observe passengers who may already be drunk or under the influence of a substance which means that single agent boarding contributes to greater conflict on board the aircrat and potential flight diversions, too.

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American Airlines Is Playing Whack-A-Mole With Problems As They Come Up (Not Getting Out Ahead)

by Gary Leff

Aug 29 2021

Large organizations have a tendency become bloated and sclerotic. It’s striking that American Airlines cut 30% of its management workforce, $500 million per year in payroll, and has returned to operating most of its flights.

That naturally raises an interesting question, what were they carrying all that staff for in the first place? Shouldn’t they have eliminated these same positions years ago? That would never have worked, and they’re seeing now why it didn’t work so well this time either.

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