Airlines

Category Archives for Airlines.

Southwest Airlines Will Have An Advantage Over Legacy Carriers Even As They ‘Eliminate Change Fees’

by Gary Leff

Sep 10 2020

The popular narrative seems to be that United, Delta, and American ‘eliminating change fees’ hurts Southwest Airlines. Southwest hasn’t had change fees, and this takes away one of Southwest’s advantages.

Other airlines still have their advantages over Southwest, from premium cabins to lounges, but those are the same as before. What’s different in the new environment is a growing cost advantage for Southwest, and most people misunderstand what ‘no change fees’ on United, Delta, and American means anyway.

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American Airlines Plans Executive Platinum Upgrades On British Airways, Japan Airlines, Qantas And More

by Gary Leff

airplane cabin
Sep 09 2020

Senior Vice President Vasu Raja told an investor conference that since American is shrinking he “envision[s] a more seamless experience across partners” both with new partners Alaska and JetBlue and with “longstanding” partners IAG (British Airways, Iberia and others), Japan Airlines, and Qantas.

He notes that while American will “be a smaller airline” the networks of partners are “strong in major business travel markets,” and so it makes sense to offer a “seamless benefit for Executive Platinums [in the form of] upgrades across the global network.”

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American Airlines Took Full Ticket Rules Off Its Website. The DOT May Investigate Why

by Gary Leff

Sep 09 2020

A formal Department of Transportation complaint has been filed (.pdf) against American Airlines over the removal of their general tariff from their website in June.

American used to have its full ‘terms and conditions’ available online. They’ve removed the legalese entirely from their website and now offer a plain language FAQ-style conditions of carriage page. However there’s still a general tariff, and customers effectively agree to it when they buy a ticket. They just can’t see it or read it.

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United Airlines Offers 30 Clues For New Routes They’ll Be Announcing Tomorrow

by Gary Leff

Sep 08 2020

At 10 a.m. Central time (11 a.m. Eastern) on Wednesday United is making a big route announcement, and they’re dropping hints – they say there are 30 clues – in a video posted to social media.

Here’s the video, and some of the hints they’re dropping. There’ll almost certainly be new transatlantic service from Washington Dulles, Newark, and Chicago. A Boeing 767-300ER is involved. And there’s a new ultra-long haul route with a Boeing 787-9, could United actually fly to Bangkok?

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Man Pleads Guilty In American Airlines Gift Card Scam

by Gary Leff

american airlines planes
Sep 08 2020

A man pled guilty today and is expected to get probation after scamming American Airlines out of $160,000 in tickets paid for with gift cards.

Billy Schwarze booked travel for friends and family. He bought gift cards to pay for the tickets, and then refunded the tickets – to his own credit card. This cost American $160,000 “and his friends and associates..$20,000.”

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Airlines Left Out Of Latest Stimulus Plan

by Gary Leff

Sep 08 2020

When calculating the cost of ‘jobs saved’ for six months via a ‘clean extension’ of CARES Act payroll support, we were looking at a cost of $333,333 per job since most of the money goes to fund payroll that airlines will have whether a bill passes or not. In other words it funds $200,000+ a year pilots and it funds the salaries of executive management, having taxpayers pick up the tab rather than shareholders and creditors.

Now though against actual announced furloughs we’re looking at a cost of about $625,000 per job saved – and many of those will just mean job losses six months down the road.

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How Airlines Choose To Make Upgrades Available, And Why One Airline Can Do Better

by Gary Leff

alaska airlines plane
Sep 06 2020

Here’s how airlines decide to make confirmable upgrade space available. They project how many first class seats they may sell in the cabin, and leave a buffer.

Seats that they know won’t be sold for cash might be given away as upgrades – but they also want to make sure that frequent flyers don’t confirm upgrades instead of paying cash so they’ll limit upgrades even still (often to when first class seats are available inexpensively – then the revenue tradeoff isn’t great, and the temptation not to pay cash is small).

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Southwest Airlines Fires A Shot At American Airlines In Miami

by Gary Leff

Sep 05 2020

What makes Miami surprising is that it’s the type of market the ‘old Southwest’ would never have entered. They already have a huge operation in Fort Lauderdale, and a smaller one at West Palm Beach and while they aren’t exactly the same markets there’s huge overlap. Southwest always favored the less expensive airports, and avoided congested business hubs.

Miami is one of the more expensive airports to operate from in the U.S. This was, if not an explicit policy of pre-merger American Airlines to drive up airport costs, something that their management sat by and was ok with happening – because it chased all the low cost carriers to Fort Lauderdale. That’s changing.

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