Category Archives for Airlines.
Several airlines have notified employees that the federal government will require to be vaccinated with no alternative for regular tests instead. That’s because the Biden administration has decided to treat airlines as federal contractors, and subject to their order that government contractors must have 100% vaccination among employees, rather than companies with 200+ employees under a pending OSHA rule.
If the Biden administration doesn’t blink, pilots are going to have to be vaccinated to fly. They don’t currently even have to wear masks in the cockpit.
While many unvaccinated pilots will get jabbed, and union senior rules mean that the more senior the pilot the harder it is for them to just leave and go fly for someone else, the concern is that the most senior pilots will take retirement. That will also have a cascading effect requiring pilots to get retrained on different equipment, also as a result of union rules.
US Airways used to be the ‘official consolidator of Star Alliance premium class inventory’, a role since taken up by Avianca LifeMiles selling points cheap so members could book awards on partner airlines. They make money selling other airlines’ seats at a discount, but for more than they pay for inventory that would otherwise go unsold.
When US Airways management took over American they brought the mileage sale philosophy to AAdvantage.
Based on an interview with Chief Revenue Officer Vasu Raja, changes to American AAdvantage seem likely to shift away from frequency and more towards revenue (remember – United awards elite status on spending and not miles flown) and to reward buying up to Main Cabin Extra or first class more than the program does today.
It seemed odd that Southwest Airlines Companion Pass members were being matched to Aeroplan 75K elite status. That’s being changed. Anyone with a Companion Pass has just two days to request a match and receive this level. After that they’ll be matching just to the 50K elite level.
Those of you with a Companion Pass should consider getting your match requests in now.
Star Alliance member Scandinavian Airlines, commonly known as SAS, is launching two new airlines-within-an-airline. They will both operate under the SAS brand, and won’t be marketed differently to consumers. However they’ll be separate companies with separate operating certificates
Senator Chuck Schumer good-naturedly quips that the most dangerous place in Washington D.C. is between himself and a TV camera.
However it looks like Schumer has a West Coast competitor in California Attorney General Rob Bonta who has rushed to join the Justice Department’s lawsuit against American Airlines and JetBlue over its Northeast alliance which covers Boston and New York, because reasons.
American Airlines was reluctant to fly to India for years (after dropping its own Chicago – Delhi service) in part because they lacked a partner in the country. After losing its partnership with Jet Airways to Delta, it had no way good way to feed traffic to and from whatever city it flew to.
Now their entire strategy of relying primarily on a limit set of partners has changed, and they’ve acquired a new partner in India to add connectivity for both of the new routes American plans to launch there this year.
When I was a kid growing up in New York, baggage claim checks were required when leaving the airport with your luggage. I used to only see this at New York-area airports. I helped prevent people from picking up the wrong bag, and also prevent someone from intentionally taking a bag that didn’t belong to them. I haven’t seen that process in a U.S. airport in many years, and of course New York isn’t the city that it used to be when Ed Koch was mayor where this really was necessary.
Maybe that would have stopped two men who have been charged with stealing over $550,000 from U.S. airlines by making false lost luggage claims since 2015.
U.S. residents who are airline elite frequent flyers can get free Air Canada Aeroplan elite status for the rest of 2021, and keep that status for the 2022 program with by booking and flying just one roundtrip on Air Canada (or Air Canada Express or Rouge) by January 15, 2022.
This is huge for anyone with elite status and transferable credit card points, or anyone who also flies United.
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 »
