Category Archives for Airlines.
Two weeks ago the Centers for Disease Control started floating the idea of requiring a negative Covid-19 test to fly domestically. Since then the airline industry went into high gear in opposition.
It turns out to be a bad idea, but not for the reasons most people think. The President’s team now opposes it.
Does airlines moving away from blocked middle seats mean people don’t really value Covid safety? If we did, it would be profitable for airlines to continue limiting capacity.
Different airlines take different approaches to seat blocking, and each seems rational from their own perspective. Delta may be benefiting now from it since they’re the only one left really doing it. However as air travel recovers the cost of maintaining blocked middle seats rises, so it won’t last, because customers don’t seem to value it enough to cover this cost.
United Airlines admits it made a mistake leaving New York JFK six years ago. They’ve been trying to get back in, and the pandemic gave them a chance. They announced service but delayed it last month. Now they’re delaying it again, and scaling back their initial flying to both San Francisco and Los Angeles to less than daily. There’s no word yet on whether they’ve found permanent flying rights from the airport, either.
Bringing a child under two with you in your lap when you travel on international award tickets just got a whole lot cheaper in some cases.
United recently made a change to their award ticket policies that’s a real improvement and ahead of other U.S. frequent flyer programs – and oddly they haven’t even announced it.
The four largest airlines in the world by seats being flown right now are all U.S. carriers. Somewhat surprising to me, the fifth-largest airline by seat capacity is Indian discounter IndiGo. There are 3 Chinese airlines in the top 10 largest, but they’ve dropped down to spots 6-8 as they pull back domestic capacity.
American Airlines isn’t operating as many flights as it used to. They’ve downsized their Phoenix flight attendant base as well. US Airways needed a large contingent out of Phoenix before merging with American, because it was the airline’s only hub west of Charlotte. That’s no longer the case.
Many flight attendants who weren’t furloughed back in the fall have transferred to other cities. Those that remain are only getting assigned to flight schedules right now, versus working reserve, if they’ve been with the company for fifty years. You’d need a start date in the summer of 1971 to avoid working reserve right now.
For the past few weeks the Biden administration has considered requiring a negative Covid test in order to take a domestic flight. However air travel restrictions may actually compromise public health, rather than contributing to it or even being neutral.
If air travel is more costly and comes with greater hassle, people may drive instead of fly, and driving is less safe. More people may die on the roads.
Alaska Airlines will become the second U.S. airline in the global oneworld alliance, along with American Airlines, effective March 31. But it turns out Alaska Airlines miles will not be redeemable on oneworld airlines that haven’t already been partners in the Mileage Plan program at that time. Instead mileage redemption on new partners in oneworld will have to wait until summer.
In other words Alaska Airlines has rushed the work to join oneworld, and will actually join before it’s done. This means customers will be able to earn miles on new airlines, crediting to their Mileage Plan account – and more airlines will award airlines for travel on Alaska – but customers don’t gain access to spend those miles on more airlines for a few more months.
Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways announced today that they’ve become the first airline in the world to have vaccinated their entire front-line workforce including all pilots and cabin crew. Etihad did this without making vaccination mandatory.
United Airlines announced this morning that it has made a commitment of more than a billion dollars to electric aircraft through a partnership with Archer Aviation to develop air taxis for urban markets, while asking the federal government for a multi-billion dollar third bailout.
The deal has United acquiring 200 electric planes that travel up to 60 miles, providing a cost and speed advantage to the airport compared to UberX and helicopters.
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 »
