Category Archives for Airlines.
Around 20 air marshals based in the agency’s Dallas field office – or about 10% of agents there – have been disciplined for smuggling viagra into the U.S. for distribution, “following a secretive two-year internal investigation.”
The TSA has sought to cover it up using nondisclosure agreements, and none will be criminally charged.
How does a person with an infectious disease decide to fly in the middle of a global pandemic? How does someone make a choice to potentially infect others, knowing that there’s a chance some of the people exposed along the way could die as a result. It’s clearly reckless – but is it criminally reckless? One law professor says yes.
The margin on things other than airline tickets is generally much higher than that of air transportation. Selling miles is a high margin business. Selling preferred seats is too. A customer with a co-brand credit card who uses it on the airline’s shopping portal and buys upgrades is a high margin customer, and a customer worth fighting over – and treating well.
This is being recognized by airline frequent flyer programs around the world and it’s time this recognition come to the U.S. too.
American Airlines has new partnerships coming online with JetBlue and Alaska Airlines. Normally we think of these sorts of partnerships as reducing competition, but there are two ways this will increase competition.
Now that the second airline bailout is done – the CARES Act contained $50 billion plus invaluable tax relief for U.S. airlines – United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby is already positioning for a third bailout. United Airlines is telling the employees they’re recalling from furlough to expect to be furloughed again after March.
Three medical professionals on board administered chest compressions before the fire department arrived to the scene and removed the man to a hospital, where he passed away. There’s now video from onboard the plane during the time he was being treated by passengers.
EMTs among the passengers put themselves at risk to treat the man, whose mask had been removed, but that had been given an oxygen mask from the aircraft. One of them has since fallen ill with Covid-like symptoms.
You haven’t been buying airline tickets, but the airlines are taking your money anyway. $15 billion in the latest Congressional spending package goes to the airlines, a second bailout. In exchange they have to bring back workers that have been involuntarily furloughed, and can’t furlough again until April 1.
$15 billion, retroactive to December 1, will be provided to cover four months of airline payroll. That’s $375,000 per furloughed worker at an annual run rate of $1.5 million per job, perhaps the most expensive jobs program in history.
Some travelers think when you buy new luggage, you have to worry about it getting dinged and scraped, but I don’t think that’s true. The whole point of luggage is to protect what’s inside of it. Getting nicked is literally what it’s for. And the well-worn look just means the luggage has been with you through many journeys.
But what if you want your bags to look damaged from the start, like a new pair or torn jeans?
With more and more Americans testing positive for Covid-19, and with the first (Pfizer-BioNTech) vaccine already rolling out, we’re likely approaching the final stages of the pandemic. But are we all going to go right back to normal, how things were before?
Now that everyone uses Zoom remote work is better than it used to be. People coming into a meeting by video that’s happening in person used to be second class attendees For a large subset of white collar workers work from home simply works better.
Usually a airline employee – not a government official – is all that stands in the way of a plane load of arriving passengers becoming illegal immigrants.
Terminal D at Dallas Fort-Worth is the international terminal, but it’s used for domestic flights too. Whether or not you’re directed to immigration and customs depends on which doors are open or closed when you get off the aircraft.
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 »
