Category Archives for Airlines.
The White House Chief of Staff has reportedly reached out to Senate Democrats to restart talks over a new coronavirus package, including a big new airline bailout aimed at avoiding job losses. And as leverage, he says that President Donald Trump “is weighing executive action to avoid massive layoffs” basically giving the cash to airlines himself if Democrats don’t get on board.
It’s not clear how that would even be possible.
American wanted to shed its flight attendant workforce by 12,600 (or 47% of flight attendants). They couldn’t have done that right away because they only sent out 9950 WARN Act notices. Leaves and voluntary quits did not – as promised – trade off with threatened layoffs, but were used to increase the number of flight attendants who won’t be working for the airline October 1.
One lawyer who has practically made a career out of enforcing airline rules in court has filed a lawsuit against an airline to get them to pay the cost of a private jet for his client after an overbooking caused the passenger to be denied boarding. The jet was the only way to make it to their destination on the same day.
Virgin Atlantic has raised $525 million in cash via three new loans, and creditors have agreed to take a hair cut. 42.5% comes from a hedge fund, 50% of the loan comes from Virgin Group, and the remaining 7.5% from a new loan against an aircraft engine.
Delta and Virgin Group get preferred stock as a swap against payments they’re owed by the airline. And the airline is reducing its aircraft lease obligations.
In the fourth quarter, after CARES Act payroll restrictions lift and airlines can furlough employees, American Airlines plans to operate less than 50% 2019 flying and just 25% of international. They simply have too many people for so few flights, because there isn’t nearly as much demand for air travel.
The airline has calculated that they need 40,000 fewer employees compared to a year ago in order to operate this fall. And they’ve worked out the number of furloughs to take place October 1, detailing them by work group.
British Airways makes a lot of business class award space available, but they’re expensive. Departures from the U.K. incur significant ‘air passenger duty’ and awards also incur fuel surcharges. A roundtrip business class award between the U.S. and U.K. might run $1300 in taxes and fees.
Right now there seems to be a quirk booking awards on British Airways that you can exploit to reduce fuel surcharges (or ‘carrier-imposed surcharges’) by about two-thirds.
Past advance sales of large blocks of miles to credit card partners have on balance probably been good for members, borrowing against the program may not be although it’s far from a foregone conclusion.
You’d expect lenders to want a strong program to secure future member interest and an ongoing revenue stream yet in practice that’s not how things usually work out. Still, while Delta has a strong elite program, there’s really not much left to devalue on the earn-and-burn side.
Delta has let employees know that they’re furloughing 1,941 pilots hired July 17, 2017 and later. That’s out of a remaining approximately 11,200 remaining pilots with the company, after accounting for voluntary early departures from the airline.
Furlough letters will be sent out this week.
If you think that masks are a good idea then of course you think they should be mandated on airplanes by the federal government, right? Wrong. Airlines already mandate masks, so a federal rule would be duplicative – but likely weaker than what we have today, and tough to ever get rid of.
Since American Airlines only performs electrostatic spraying every 7 days a persistent chemical application is needed (in contrast to other airlines striving to spray between every flight). SurfaceWise 2 will kill viruses for at least a week.
The EPA has approved use of the chemical – but only for application in Texas airports and for flights departing Texas.
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 »
