Category Archives for Airlines.
The single best use of Virgin Atlantic miles is business and first class redemptions on Japanese carrier ANA. Indeed, it may be the best value award in the world. And it’s just become more flexible.
Just last week Delta Air Lines said they would stop blocking middle seats May 1, but they’re filling up planes including middle seats early – temporarily this weekend – as the once most-reliable airline in the country tries to recover from another holiday operational meltdown.
Delta proactively cancelled 72 flights as of this writing on Sunday, compared to just 1 for United and 5 at American, before the flying day even started.
American Airlines has drawn the wrath of Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick who reports that American’s head of government relations admitted neither he nor CEO Doug Parker had actually read the bill they oppose.
Part of the Thai Airways turnaround plan, prior to the pandemic and bankruptcy, was to sell branded frozen food. It’s taken two years, but that’s finally about to start.
Twenty one months ago Air Canada announced they’d be acquiring Canadian low cost carrier Air Transat, in a deal that was finally going to be worth about three quarters of a billion dollars. That price got chopped down to less than $200 million during the pandemic.
The deal was delayed by Canada’s competition regulators, that pushed them into the pandemic and lowered the price. Now the deal has been terminated as a result of European Commission objections.
After being pressured to speak out against a new voting bill in Texas, American Airlines has issued a statement.
There was a lot of exciting news out Wednesday with Alaska Airlines joining the oneworld global airline alliance and additional benefits being announced for Alaska Airlines elites flying American Airlines and vice versa.
However one thing seems especially odd.
Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards is encouraging new member signups with 5000 bonus points getting members to a reward faster. This helps demonstrate the value of the program to the member, when they redeem they’re more likely to stick with the program.
As in many states, Republicans in Texas are pushing voting law changes. They’ve passed a new bill in the state senate that “would limit early voting hours, prohibit drive-thru voting and bar local election officials from proactively sending vote-by-mail applications.”
Now that Delta has embroiled itself in the controversy of Georgia’s new voting law, former San Antonio Mayor, President Obama’s HUD Secretary, and 2020 Democratic presidential primary contender Julian Castro is calling on Texas-headquartered American Airlines and Southwest Airlines to stake out positions on the law.
In December Alaska Airlines introduced The Safety Dance, taking the Men Without Hats’ classic and applying it to air travel during the Covid-19 pandemic.
To celebrate joining the global oneworld alliance today, Alaska Airlines has released a new version of their Safety Dance featuring cameos by employees and executives from oneworld partner airlines. It may just be the best thing that happened in March.
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 »
