Category Archives for Airlines.
American AAdvantage has eliminated close-in booking fees. They used to charge a $75 fee for awards booked within 21 days of departure, waived for all AAdvantage elite frequent flyers. They no longer charge this fee effective today, January 15.
Airlines aren’t a monopoly. Airfares inclusive of fees have fallen. Low cost carriers like Spirit and Frontier have been driving down prices.
Southwest Airlines sells most of its tickets directly. It doesn’t pay third parties to distribute its flights to consumers. It was the first major airline with a website (1996) and one of the first e-commerce sites to hit a billion dollars in revenue in a year.
Major U.S. airlines are a lot larger now and most transactions have migrated online. American shared with employees last week that they hit a new milestone for revenue generated at their AA.com website.
Several airlines sell Catholic indulgences that go by the name carbon offsets. The idea is that they’ll funnel donations to non-profits that do good for the environment in some amount the counteract the effects of carbon attributable (on average) to a given passenger’s travel.
I’m skeptical of these measures for several reasons. Not least of which because adoption rates are infinitesimally low.
Delta has been talking about reducing or eliminating change fees, or providing additional value when they charge fees.
Currently the standard ticket change fee on Delta is $200, which is similar to what American and United charge. However they’ve been talking about changing that.
Cathay Pacific-owned HK Express is apologizing for requiring passengers to take pregnancy tests at the airport as a condition of flying to a U.S. territory in the Pacific, as a strategy of complying with U.S. immigration demands.
Cathay Pacific’s schedule filing had them dropping two daily Boeing 777s retaining one 777 and a four-times weekly Airbus A350 (in addition to its daily Newark flight). However that’s not the plan at all.
Last year Walsh sold over $4 million in IAG stock to fund a divorce. The board has been made aware of an ongoing relationship he’s had with an employee. However IAG denies this is the reason for his impending departure.
Delta says they are adding Amex cardholders rapidly and the final 2019 total comes to 1.1 million. Delta also shares that they’re adding SkyMiles members at “double the rate of just three years ago” for a total of 6 million new members in 2019.
This is solid advice – not just for flight attendants – and was even prior to the latest tensions.
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 »
