Category Archives for Airlines.
United Airlines President and soon-to-be CEO Scott Kirby keynoted the J.P. Morgan 2020 Industrials Conference today. He took a far more aggressive stance on how deep to cut, how bad things can get, than other airline executives. And he was more willing to share specific data on how bad things already are.
Delta has suspended share buybacks and is reducing pension contributions. They have instituted a hiring freeze and are offering voluntary leave to employees with an eye towards reducing staff count through retirement. They are “[p]arking aircraft, and evaluating early retirements of older aircraft.”
They’re also starting to implement $500 million in capital expense reductions, and they’re cutting flights.
United Airlines already announced a 20% cut to its international route network and 10% cut domestically. American is out with route and frequency reductions and I don’t think they are done.
International reduction for summer is 10% (55% reduction in transpacific flying). Domestic reduction in April is 7.5%.
Florida health officials asked all arriving international travelers to self-quarantine for 14 days. Now they’ve retracted the recommendation.
This recommendation no longer applies only to people who have been in (or in contact with people arriving from) Italy, China, Iran and South Korea. Miami is a primary gateway for flights to and from Latin America, where there are relatively far fewer cases so I’m not sure arriving off a flight from Colombia or Panama is a current risk factor.
Last year American Airlines and Hyatt announced a new partnership offering bonus points and elite status challenges.
Both Hyatt and American are back with elite status challenges for 2020.
United has slightly walked back its crazy policy published this weekend not to provide refunds to customers in the event of a schedule change less than 25 hours.
After a swift backlash in social media, United will now let customers cancel and retain a travel credit without a change fee in the event United changes flight schedules 2 or more hours. They’re still applying new rules retroactively to already-purchased tickets.
One airline appears to be reneging on their promise to waive ticket change fees – and it’s not even United Airlines. It’s Frontier.
Frontier had said “customers with existing reservations between March 3 and 16 would be allowed to change their flights or cancel them for a flight credit valid for 90 days, free of charge.” A 90 day credit isn’t very helpful if things progress on a medium- to bad trajectory, but this was something.
Here’s a note shared by an American flight attendant on Saturday who boarded her flight to find that there were no gloves yet she’s expected to pick up trash from customers. It seems to me that if a flight can’t meet its safety standards it shouldn’t operate until it can, D0 notwithstanding.
It’s not just flight attendants though. Did you know that American’s airport employees aren’t permitted to wear gloves with the carrier’s new uniform standards?
There’s a theme developing at United: all your money belongs to us. Customers exist to serve the airline, the airline doesn’t exist to serve customers. From refusing refunds to customers even when flights don’t operate the same day, to telling customers they’ll still have to spend as much money on the airline this year if they want elite benefits next year the message is clear: loyalty is one way.
Sara Nelson is President of the AFA-CWA, flight attendants union with 50,000 members and part of the national Communications Workers of America. She’s an activist in the left wing of the Democratic Party, a Bernie Sanders supporter, and has been called ‘the most powerful flight attendant in America’ as a rising star in the labor movement.
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 »
