Category Archives for Airlines.
A passenger took a photo of the refugee camp setup that Brazil’s Gol airlines uses as the crew rest area on its Boeing 737 MAX, flying from Brasilia to Orlando. That flight is scheduled at 8 hours 20 minutes. One person on social media offered, “I believe most people call this a blanket fort.”
Mileage Plan has 11 million active members, over 3 million cobrand cardmembers, and over 600,000 elite members. They value their program at over $12 billion.
The American Airlines fleet of Airbus A320s is a mess, and should really be put out of their misery. Since the airline has gone over a decade without investing in them, they’re dragging down already low expectations for customer experience at the airline.
It’s usually first class on these planes, but here’s a coach seat that’s allowed to fly.
The pair then found themselves without tickets home. They were treated as no shows for their outbound flight, so their return trip was cancelled. They bought Alaska Airlines flights again, Seattle to San Diego.
This is a mess all the way around, but there are lessons.
Alaska has shared that the move to a single loyalty program will come this summer, and that they’ll also launch a premium credit card at that time.
To build a marketing list for the premium credit card in support of its launch, they’ve created an ‘early access list’ with free miles.
Plans for Alaska Airlines to bring widebody flying to Seattle and launch long haul routes are big news, and the airline is also sharing the timeline to merge frequent flyer programs with Hawaiian Airlines and introduce a premium credit card.
To keep crewmembers fired up, the union sent out a communication to members listing all of the items that United has sought to change in their favor in the new contract.
In perhaps the most penny pinching move yet that also best symbolizes the direction they’ve headed, JetBlue has started to charge $2 for Bloody Mary Mix. And by the way, it’s the same brand – but a smaller 7.5 ounce can – as what United, Delta and Southwest offer for free.
This new Taittinger partnership hasn’t been officially announced yet, but it seems to be rolling out, and it’s even being highlighted by the airline in its social. That’s about a $45 retail bottle, which is more than respectable for U.S. airline business class.
A passenger on a delayed Delta flight got himself stuck in the plane’s lavatory shortly after takeoff. He managed to get “locked in there somehow” and couldn’t figure out how to get out. The lock was sticking, several flight attendants couldn’t free him, and finally “one of the pilots..got the job done with a butter knife.”
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 »
