Category Archives for Airlines.
Between Alaska or JetBlue or even Delta, and Southwest, I had more confidence buying from Southwest. They’ve given up that advantage. But expiring flight credits is better for the balance sheet, since it writes off a liability, even though expiring flight credits is worse for incentivizing repeat business.
Southwest Airlines has announced the end of Bags Fly Free, the primary benefit separating it from competitors – and idea they have consistently rejected.
Together with cutting points-earning by two-thirds on the fares most customers buy, Southwest now says they will offer basic economy fares – something they said they would never do.
Delta Air Lines filed an 8-K this afternoon with updated financial guidance, in advance of presenting at J.P. Morgan 2025 Industrials Conference. And the news is not good. They’ve cut first quarter revenue growth in half – and earnings per share down 50% – 70%.
Southwest Airlines as the most on-time carrier in February according to data from aviation analytics company Cirium. Spirit was number two, and Delta was number three – in fact Delta barely edged out United.
Effective June 9, American says they will begin to pay attention to cabin appearance (but to achieve this they need planes to have more time on the ground for cleaners to clean). They will care that catering is loaded. They will care that flight attendants follow service standards.
On Wednesday, Air India flight 126 from Chicago O’Hare to Delhi took off at 11:24 a.m. on its 14-hour journey. However, four and a half hours into the flight, the Boeing 777-300ER (registration VT-ALQ) crossed over Greenland as the the 11th out of 12 lavatories clogged and became inoperable. One business class lav still worked. The airline decided to fly the four and a half hours back to Chicago.
There are more seats flying today than there were before the pandemic but flights are still below 2019 levels worldwide, and we’re certainly not back to trend.
The current guidance is that food for sale is only available on “select flights” that are “over 1,300 miles” and not to expect there to be anything left by the time a flight attendant reaches your aisle because “limited quantities are available.” All they even sell is a fruit and cheese plate ($11), roasted almonds ($8) and cool ranch doritos ($5). That’s going to change.
You can only buy tickets in-person at limited hours, but you can’t buy tickets during those hours. That means there’s no real option to buy them in person, which means that booking online isn’t a choice customers are making, and therefore the web booking fee is not optional. Yet Frontier still excludes these charges from their domestic airfare excise tax calculation.
One of the unique benefits of lifetime status at United Airlines is that the designated companion of the million miler inherits their status. This benefit is changing.
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 »
