Category Archives for Airlines.
On Thursday the ‘association’ of two unions representing mechanics and fleet service workers announced that the contract was ratified. And the deal was overwhelmingly ratified, because their members aren’t morons. Going back tot he bargaining table now would mean a deal close to what they received was off the table. Signing bonuses? Now? Are you crazy?
Texas has become the latest state to impose restrictions on arriving airline passengers. And the Governor says that mandatory quarantine for passengers arriving from the New York area and New Orleans will be enforced by some of the state’s troopers.
If there’s one thing consumers thought they could trust it’s that if an airline flight doesn’t operate they can get their money back. Many have refused and now Canada is backing up its airlines against consumers.
The problem for airlines is that this tactic (1) erodes what little trust consumers had, and (2) incentivizes customers not to buy airline tickets now for travel far in the future because they now know they might get stuck without travel or money.
Air travel isn’t going to open back up all at once, or evenly everywhere. It won’t be uniform even domestically, and it’ll happen in waves across the world. People will be afraid to fly. Some businesses will have gotten used to online meetings and won’t fly as much. The world of air travel is going to be very different as we (eventually) transition back into the air.
Creating a mechanism for the money provided to airlines to be paid back is better than not, however it’s important for politicians not to meddle in the industry, forcing airlines to make decisions to please legislative constituencies rather than customers.
The U.S. government can issue over $50 billion in loans and grants (and take non-voting equity positions in airlines in exchange for grants) under plans that have been sketched out so far. There’s also nearly $20 billion for airports and cargo airlines. It is not too late to stop this.
One thing that many airlines have done to make refunds more difficult is removed the ability for travel agents to process refunds for their customers through computer reservations systems. The Amadeus system maintains a list of those airlines.
Two AirAsia pilots climbed out the window of their plane on Friday when they arrived in Delhi. Video shows one of them taking luggage from the other. They had learned a passenger on board might be infected with the novel coronavirus – or at least was sneezing, which isn’t commonly a symptom of COVID-19. No one on board actually had the virus.
They aren’t refusing to give refunds. They just aren’t processing the refunds. As Jerry Seinfeld might have said, “anyone can take the refund request, but it’s the processing that matters.” The airline can slow walk refunds, it believes, with impunity.
Delta CEO Ed Bastian sent an internal memo to employees outlining the seriousness of the situation faced by the airline and the steps they’ve taken to date – and informing non-flying personnel that they’ll have their work days refused 20% – 40% through June, resulting “in a 25 percent savings in payroll over the next 90 days.”
Currently 17,000 employees – including 7000 flight attendants – are taking unpaid leave with benefits. This helps scale down the operation by “over 70 percent; parking more than 600 aircraft.”
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 »
