Airlines

Category Archives for Airlines.

Four Principles American Airlines Is Using For Adding Widebody Flights This Winter

by Gary Leff

american plane
Sep 23 2020

American Airlines is primarily a domestic airline. They’re smaller internationally than Delta and United. Their focus has been building domestic connections between the middle of the country and also the Sun Belt.

Like all the other major airlines they have a number of planes parked, especially widebody planes that fly internationally. Talking to pilots last week about how they’ll grow their route network again and deploy these widebodies, American’s Senior Vice President and Chief Revenue Officer Vasu Raja offered four principles.

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What Should You Do When It’s Flight Attendants Not Wearing Masks?

by Gary Leff

Sep 23 2020

This week a photo of a United Airlines flight attendant not wearing a mask went fairly viral, because airlines have been kicking two year old children off of planes for lack of masks. Surely the ones tasked with ensuring compliance should do so themselves.

What should a passenger do if a flight attendant isn’t wearing a mask? It’s reasonable to be both concerned for health, but also reticent to challenge flight crew out of fear of being removed from the aircraft or having law enforcement called.

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American And United Will Both Fly Non-Stop To Bangalore, But Their Strategies Are Very Different

by Gary Leff

Sep 23 2020

In mid-February, just as the coronavirus pandemic was gaining steam, American Airlines announced a partnership with Alaska Airlines and plans to serve Seattle – Bangalore, India. It was to be American’s return to India, and the first U.S.-Bangalore non-stop.

The flight’s launch as been delayed to next year, but American Airlines President Robert Isom told his airline’s pilots last week that they’re still committed to it – even though United Airlines has just announced plans to fly San Francisco – Bangalore and will likely pick up most of the non-stop tech corridor business, and they’re planning to launch their flight before American begins its service.

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American Airlines Says Business Travel Has Tripled Off Its Low Base, Led By Midwest Manufacturing

by Gary Leff

airport
Sep 22 2020

According to top American AIrlines executives there’s “a lot more consumer willingness to travel especially in the South and Midwest.” These are “small and medium-sized business[es]” in “cities that are smaller cities, Tulsa or Oklahoma City” rather than “places like New York or San Francisco which were the big meccas of large corporate travel.”

Consulting, financial services and entertainment aren’t traveling. Factory and warehouse businesses are.

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Woman Melts Down When American Airlines Kicks Her Two Year Old Off For Not Wearing A Mask

by Gary Leff

Sep 21 2020

Rachel Starr Davis was fleeing a hurricane in Florida last week, connecting to American Airlines flight 5595 from Charlotte to Manchester, New Hampshire. Before pushback a flight attendant approached her and asked how old her son is.

The two year old boy wouldn’t wear a mask, despite in his mother’s words ‘begging, bribing, pleading’ but he screamed and cried as she “tried to hold him and put the mask on.”

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The American Airlines CEO Took A Southwest Flight Attendant To Dinner To Talk About Race

by Gary Leff

Sep 21 2020

In late May American Airlines CEO Doug Parker had a personal interaction with a Southwest Airlines flight attendant over race that went viral after he flew the airline and was carrying the book White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard For White People To Talk About Racism which had been recommended by a board member months earlier, but that he’d put aside distracted by the coronavirus crisis.

He and his wife continue that conversation.

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New Studies Reporting Covid-19 Transmission On Planes Are Good News!

by Gary Leff

Sep 20 2020

Documenting just a handful of cases where inflight spread may have occurred is significant as an argument for the safety of flying because there’s never been a virus studied as extensively and intensively in a short period of time as this one. There are millions of people flying throughout the world week after week during the global pandemic, yet we haven’t been able to identify more flights where the virus spread (though there are probably some). This – combined with airline cabin crew having a lower incidence of Covid-19 than the general population, is highly suggestive that inflight spread is very rare.

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A $2.5 Billion Airline Payroll Support Plan Makes More Sense Than What The Airlines Asked For

by Gary Leff

Sep 19 2020

Airlines have somehow conned the President, the Speaker of the House and myriad members of the House of Representatives and the Senate to sign onto the idea of a $25 billion ‘clean extension’ of CARES Act payroll support. That’s a second $25 billion injection of cash in exchange for not furloughing workers or eliminating service to most cities through March 31, 2021.

Except that the math here is truly insane. No one seems to be doing the math. So let’s talk about what a $2.5 billion package might look like instead.

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