Category Archives for Airlines.
The conniving 14 year old gets short shrift in all of the legal maneuvering. He was being watched by his grandfather and “asked his grandfather to go to Starbucks to get him a Frappuccino.” While the grandfather was gone the boy went to the airport. He was apparently in league with him mom who bought him a ticket to New Orleans. The father, alerted to the plan, called the police and drove to the airport before the flight took off. Southwest let the boy travel.
A Pegasus Airlines Boeing 737 touched down in bad weather at Istanbul’s second airport (Sabiha, code SAW) after flying from Izmur, Turkey. Flight PC 2193 overran runway 6 and hit the airport’s perimeter wall. The plane broke into 3 parts. An engine that separated caught fire.
There were 183 passengers and crew on board. It took nearly five hours to free everyone from the wreckage. One person is reported to have perished, and 157 taken to area hospitals. All six crew on board were injured.
American Airlines flight AA1528 from San Juan to Philadelphia was delayed 7 hours and 45 minutes on Monday when pilot Mathew Stapula didn’t show up at the airport. He was killed outside a San Juan strip club early Sunday morning. American sent a new crew member to operate the flight.
The strip club was the scene of another fatal shooting in late September.
As if China travel wasn’t already burdened enough by coronavirus fears, a concomitant drop in demand, and airlines cancelling flights, a major online travel agency group won’t even sell tickets in or out of China to passengers looking to buy them.
This doesn’t just give you a lot more miles than you’d normally earn on the cheapest fares, it serves as a reason to credit those fares to Alaska’s Mileage Plan program.
Alaska is already super generous with earning on premium cabin fares on partners, offering big bonuses as part of the program. But this promotion focuses on delivering the most value to customers flying the least expensive tickets – a real departure in recent times for the industry.
Batik Air flew passengers stranded in Wuhan, China to Batam, Indonesia on Sunday. All 243 people on board had been screened for coronavirus prior to boarding. Then once they made it to Indonesia they were flown on board military aircraft to Natuna Island for quarantine.
Disembarking in Batam everyone was sprayed with an unknown substance, though individuals in hazmat suits had backpacks that read ‘ALHOKOL’.
A month ago a Ukrainian Boeing 737 crashed in Iran. Iran admitted they shot down Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 by mistake.
Air traffic control communications between Tehran airport tower and an Aseman Airlines flight show that Iran knew about the missile strike as it occurred.
The pilot of the Iranian domestic flight EP3768 from Shiraz to Tehran sees the missile and discusses it with air traffic control as the Ukraine International Airlines flight disappears.
American has announced a new codeshare relationship with Gol as well as frequent flyer partnership and an expansion at their Miami hub including to Latin America.
Gol wasn’t a great partner for Delta, which doesn’t have a huge presence in Brazil and so the opportunities to feed Delta flights were limited. Gol is a much better partner for American, which serves four cities from Brazil and flies to the country from four of its hubs.
What movies are ok to watch on a plane and which ones aren’t? The National Center on Sexual Exploitation says that United is training flight attendants to draw a line, and training them to intervene when the line is crossed.
I was able to get some time on the books to speak with Matt Quale who is the President of Bask Bank to get the backstory on this new mileage-earning savings account and also put some questions to him about how he feels about people registering for a free account just to earn the miles – and how he plans to convert those customers into long-term savers.
He’s an American Airlines Platinum member and a Marriott Platinum rounding towards lifetime status (he’s over 7 years of Platinum and 500 cumulative nights with the program). So he gets what we’re after.
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 »
