Category Archives for Airlines.
Texas Senator Ted Cruz was photographed yesterday flying an American Airlines regional jet, without wearing a mask.
Cruz is holding a cup of coffee in the photo. And while American Airlines and other U.S. carriers require masks to be worn by passenger, they aren’t required to do so while eating or drinking.
Early in the pandemic I warned you to be indispensable in your job, that we were in recession and work from home couldn’t be an excuse to let up at work. A lot of jobs would be lost and you needed to position yourself so that yours wouldn’t be one of them.
In normal times performance matters at work. That’s not true at airlines, and certainly not true during these times. Non-union workers are being let go en masse, and at a scale where it’s difficult to separate the poor performers from the stars. And union employees mostly see jobs preserved or lost based on seniority alone – performance and value creation for the company have literally nothing to do with the decision.
On June 21 an Emirates flight attendant was arrested in Dubai while on a first date.
UAE police raided the man’s apartment while they were both there, and found two joints of marijuana. Police took them both into custody, and she’s been held ever since. Reports are that the 23 year old British expat, Derrin Crawford, has fallen ill with septic tonsilitis while in jail.
An announcement was made for people to keep their distance from each other at the gate, but no one did.
United told her that she should just “push your way through” when it was time for her to board, she says. She objected, everyone is supposed to be social distancing to reduce contact and limit the spread of COVID-19. And the airline is supposed to have procedures to make sure travel is safe. She says she was told, “if you don’t like it then don’t board.”
United Airlines made big news this week by announcing they could lay off as much as 39% of their employees (which some media exaggerated as half).
Now American Airlines is preparing to send out WARN Act notices, too according to the TWU-IAM association which represents mechanics and fleet service workers at the carrier.
It was big news this past week when American Airlines responded forcefully to a complaint about shutting down a member’s account for opening various frequent flyer accounts in different names as part of a technique to generate several Citibank credit card signup offers.
Now the person filing the complaint has done two things in response to American’s filing.
Through July 12, Aeroplan will sell miles with a bonus of ‘up to’ 75%. They’ll sell you 1 million miles, double the usual limit.
There’s an extra kicker for those seeking elite status with Air Canada: the amount you spend buying miles with this promotion counts towards the airline’s qualifying dollars requirement.
At some point a mileage program has to give members a break, when they’re absolutely certain they’ve got seats that will go unsold, don’t they? And what does it say that they choose not to do so?
The question I have is what covenants were agreed to – aside from usual cancellation penalties or costs to defer deliveries – when American entered into a settlement at the beginning of the year with Boeing over the MAX?
At the time the value of the settlement was estimated at around $600 million although the form and timing of payments weren’t clear. If the settlement included conditions including acceptance of future deliveries, that could explain the airline’s willingness to do so, and could mean rejecting deliveries now would be even more costly than usual.
Companies are frequently faced with a dilemma where they have to choose between acting ethically and acting legally. But it’s shocking to find a situation where a company is faced with a binary choice, and either option they choose is illegal.
That’s apparently the situation American Airlines found itself in when pilot Major General Thomas Harwood III ended his tour of duty with the U.S. Air Force Reserve and sought to return to active status with the airline.
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 »
