Category Archives for Airlines.
At American Airlines some of the required hours didn’t get paid during the mid-May pay cycle, and in fact many flight attendants whose scheduled flights were all cancelled received $0 checks. Others who got some pay appear to be missing hours. Many American Airlines employees will have to wait to get paid because the airline’s pay systems weren’t programmed to handle the way they’re currently paying employees.
According to the Senior Vice President of Air Operations at the American Airlines wholly-owned regional carrier Envoy Air, “all of the E-175s and E-145s that we parked as a result of COVID-19 [are expected to be] returned to service by June 3.”
In addition all of the 20 Embraer 175 regional jets that had been operated by Compass are being brought into the Envoy Air fleet “over the next few months.” The first one, aircaft N208AN, was sent to Abilene for conformity checks by Eagle Aviation Services prior to entering revenue service.
Five Senators want customers to get their money back for trips they voluntarily cancelled, because we bailed out the airlines and because people need the money.
Since this is proposed by 5 Democratic Senators in a Republican Senate, and two are potential VP nominees, the chances of passages are zero.
Travel isn’t returning quickly to China, and if you want to see what two months into our future looks like the Chinese experience is certainly one clue. So is the risk of continued flare ups in the virus, which will scare people even further away from flying.
Some of the funds went to the cleverly-named Rite Bros Aviation, some to Eastern Airlines which chartered Mike Pence his campaign plane in 2016, Guardian Helicopters which doesn’t even seem like an airline and $27 million went to Clay Lacy Aviation which charters private planes.
The E.U. acknowledges that travel vouchers are a bad deal for customers. They might expire unused. Fares might go up. And airlines might go out of business. Individual airlines and governments should work to resolve these issues to make vouchers more attractive, and once that happens they think vouchers should be endorsed as an option. However the E.U. stands behind its requirement that cancelled flights entitle a customer to a refund.
Southwest has made earning elite status and a companion pass easier and also made credit card spend more lucrative for earning elite status too. Adding double points for flights into the mix makes it an especially rewarding time to travel. I suspect this is only the beginning.
Airlines are required to provide a refund when they cancel a flight, or make a significant change to their schedule. Federal law does not define what either of these two things mean, so airlines can create their own definition as long as it’s reasonable. United has adopted an unreasonable interpretation.
However the Department of Transportation reminds that even that new interpretation cannot be applied retroactively to tickets that were purchased before it went into effect.
Delta and American Airlines are limiting the number of seats they’ll sell on each flight, to give customers confidence they can travel without having another passenger squeezed up next to them in a middle seat. United is not doing this, and says if you don’t want to be crammed in next to someone else then don’t take the flight.
Frontier Airlines will start requiring passengers to pass a temperature check to fly. Airline lobbyists, though, want to give the job of checking temperatures to the TSA. That will remove all responsibility for accuracy from the airlines and distract TSA from its security mission. This is a bad idea.
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 »
