Category Archives for Airlines.
By 9 a.m. this morning Delta Air Lines had cancelled over 80 flights today, on what’s expected to be the busiest travel day since March. There are even more cancellations tomorrow. So far FlightAware appears to be tracking over 420 Delta cancellations throughout the holiday weekend.
Air India announced three-times weekly San Francisco – Bangalore non-stop service starting January 11, 2021. It will be Air India’s longest route, on board a Boeing 777-200LR.
American Airlines announced Bangalore service first, followed by United. American’s service will start last and appears to be the most vulnerable with this move.
Texas Senator John Cornyn is calling for more airline subsidies and the arguments being deployed now are even crazier than before.
These payroll subsidies have become more expensive and cover a shorter period of time, even though airline payrolls are lower than they were during the first bailout. And deploying the argument that vaccines won’t be transported without airline subsidies is both terribly cynical and untrue.
An American Airlines passenger says flight attendants retaliated against him for pointing out they hadn’t been wearing masks.
Police met his aircraft in Palm Springs and took him into “a tiny, non-vented room” and told him he was reported as an “unruly passenger.”
The President of the American Airlines flight attendants union Julie Hedrick sent a note to cabin crew members where she takes credit for preventing their airline from offering full beverage service in economy.
It’s one of several tidbits she reveals in a new communication with flight attendants.
OAG schedule data shows which airlines and which regions have brought schedules back closest to pre-pandemic levels.
As Covid-19 epidemics spread like wildfire both in the U.S. and Europe, European flight schedules have been pulling back amidst lockdowns while U.S. passenger travel has held firm and grown slightly entering the Thanksgiving period. In fact the entire world’s week-over-week increase of 400,000 seats is accounted for by Southwest Airlines.
SkyTeam’s Korean Air is acquiring Star Alliance member Asiana. Now the Prime Minister of Japan is talking about the need to merge ANA and Japan Airlines as part of injecting subsidies into his country’s two largest airlines.
Qantas CEO Alan Joyce says you’ll need proof of vaccination against Covid-19 to be able to fly his airline internationally, whether arriving or departing Australia.
His airline’s requirements may not be a bellwether for the world, but they do point to an expectation that travelers will need to be vaccinated in order to have access to the world. And this requirement is likely to last, when put in place by governments, for longer than is necessary.
Virgin Atlantic is running a fantastic business class sale from the UK at $1334 roundtrip on pretty much any route. Delta codeshares on Virgin may be even cheaper (from US$1083).
And incredibly Virgin Atlantic is running 50% off of award travel, too. That’s important because with taxes and fuel surcharges a roundtrip award ticket can still, at normal pricing, cost almost as much as a paid business class ticket under this sale.
Revenue-based frequent flyer programs have always been less generous. These programs were long popular with ultra low cost carriers, with low margins, where awarding customers little made sense.
When planes were full, rewarding customers less made some sense. Airlines didn’t need to spend as much marketing to fill empty seats when there weren’t many empty seats. The problem now is that revenue-based programs reward customers less in a low fare environment precisely when airlines need to invest more in marketing to fill empty seats, and it’s cheaper to offer award inventory than ever.
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 »
