Category Archives for Airlines.
Andreas Wuchner was checking in with British Airways at London Heathrow airport for a flight to Zurich when he slipped in a puddle of Bailey’s liqueur and hit his head when he came down.
British Airways has to pay him approximately $180,000 in strict liability, and he’s now pursuing additional damages for negligence. It took over three years to get this far.
American Airlines, like many other travel companies, has reduced requirements for earning elite status in 2021. However they haven’t done nearly enough considering that business travel won’t restart for some time.
American Airlines knows this and is cold calling customers, and following up with an email, offering to sell bundles of elite qualifying miles, segments, and qualifying dollars at a variety of price points.
Amazon’s former head of visual effects for Amazon Studios, Marc Sadeghi, is suing the company saying he was fired for upgrading a flight to New Zealand despite a medical condition he claims made coach travel impossible. If he wins, upgrades as a disability accommodation could become the emotional support animals of the 2020s.
American Airlines is adding several Chicago routes, bookable starting this weekend. The one I’m most excited about is Chicago – Fresno, but there are also surprising additions like Chicago – Nantucket (!) which airlines don’t pay enough attention to even seasonally, with service beyond Boston, New York, Philadelphia and to a lesser extent DC.
Here’s an internal employee update on all the new, resumed, and extended routes out of the Windy City for American AIrlines.
American Airlines now lets AAdvantage members redeem 12,000 miles for an at-home Covid-19 test and they’re offering slightly more than a penny per point in value with the redemption.
The CEO of Qantas previously claimed his country would re-open to international travel July 1. He was wrong. The airline is pushing back the restart of international flights to October 31.
Their Airbus A380s won’t return to service until June 30, 2023 ‘at the earliest’ so international flights will all be operated by Airbus A330s and Boeing 787s. And they won’t take delivery of their next 3 Boeing 787s, either.
In 2019 I told you that Amazon would offer consumers a standalone alternative to UPS and FedEx, something that was delayed by the coronavirus surge in orders.
Now, though, it appears that they are close to building a shipping network to carry third party packages. And it makes perfect sense from everything we’ve seen from Amazon so far.
Under normal circumstances I’d say it was serviceable, fine, but hardly interesting or innovative by modern standards. Yet there’s one salient feature to it: a 2021 safety video that makes no reference whatsoever to Covid-19. Nobody is even wearing masks. They’re crowded into a theater, for instance – a packed house – and no one is the least bit concerned about spread in such an indoor congregant setting.
Some might call that tough deaf, but I love it – a paean to normalcy:
On Monday the carrier reportedly fired its CEO Olfa Hamdi according to a note posted by the government to Facebook. Hamdi had been on the job for just over a month, and her announced dismissal came in the midst of a general strike by some of its 6500 employees fearful of not getting paid after the airline’s bank account was seized by Turkish airport operator TAV and also fearful that her turnaround plan might include privatization.
She says she’s still running the airline, though, after a failed attempt by the government to arrest her.
American Airlines has a wide variety of policies for how many checked bags are offered free to customers. They’re simplifying their policies, which in a couple of cases means more free bags but in other cases means fewer.
They’re also adding basic economy fares to transpacific and Israel/India flights, but those fares will include a checked bag. So the major restriction is that these fares will not allow changes.
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 »
