Category Archives for Airlines.
Several conflicts happened on planes with passengers heading to DC ahead of Congress counting electoral votes and declaring Joe Biden the next President of the United States.
Whether it was heckling Mitt Romney on Delta or a maskless party on Southwest, the incidents weren’t limited to any single airline. But American Airlines is by far the largest carrier at close-in Washington National airport.
On Tuesday night’s American Airlines flight AA2198 from Charlotte to Washington National, a Trump supporter clearly wearing a mask was removed from the aircraft after an apparent ‘joke’ about not wearing a mask. Other passengers around her can be heard asking the airline not to take the time to remove her, and just let everyone get on their way.
We usually see passengers being booted from flights for refusing to wear a mask. It’s unusual to see passengers kicked off for complaining about how other passengers are wearing their masks.
However on Saturday’s United Airlines Newark – Tel Aviv flight that’s exactly what happened.
On New Years Eve, Star Alliance member Avianca’s flight AV29 took off from Orlando headed to Bogota, Colombia. And as the Airbus A319 touched down it “collided with a large plastics object floating in the air” which became tangled across both the left and ride side engines, wings and horizontal stabilizers.
In December 2019 – shortly before the start of the pandemic – Korean Air announced a huge devaluation of their frequent flyer program with revenue-based mileage-earning and a new distance-based award chart coming in April 2021.
Korean Air has offered one of the more lucrative frequent flyer programs for many years, and access to outstanding award inventory not made available to its partners. However they’re also part of a joint venture with (and partially owned by) Delta, so devaluation of their mileage program was almost a given – at least until the pandemic hit.
Delta decided to drop Gogo internet from its main domestic fleet, and replace it with ViaSat. They reiterated their commitment to move forward with free internet, and believe ViaSat will be best to drive their project streaming content to seat back entertainment screens… an effort American Airlines considered and rejected, despite an internal push for such a project.
Australia may re-open to international travel July 1. At least that’s what the CEO of Qantas is saying, and Qantas has loaded international flights for sale as of that date. Qantas had previously killed its full international schedule through the end of September.
Seeing this news I immediately went to look for award seats
They have a diversity of partners that can be strategically useful in niche cases. And where they’re useful the value is extraordinary.
Virgin Atlantic says they are planning to make another no-notice change to their award pricing for travel on Delta, it’s expected to come in a matter of days, and they don’t even know what it is yet. That’s perhaps the worst possible practice in loyalty.
Palestinian Airlines is being liquidated by the Palestinian Authority. It hasn’t flown in 6 years but has continued to serve as an employer in Gaza. Down to just two Fokker 50 aircraft those were returned from lease by Niger Airlines during the pandemic.
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 »
