Category Archives for Airlines.
Singapore Airlines isn’t selling international first class anymore on most routes, at all, for the next year. What’s going on? And what does it mean for the future of first class?
I’ve been overall a pessimist about business travel, but Southwest’s CEO takes it too far, arguing that he “wouldn’t be surprised to see business travel languish for a decade before it gets back to 2019 levels.”
Sure, he’s signaling that with their relatively strong balance sheet and largely domestic travel exposure they’re better-positioned than rivals to withstand a long travel recession. But we’re already starting to see cracks in the ‘indefinite work from home’ model.
With India rounding towards 5 million lab-confirmed cases of Covid-19, hundreds of millions of cases based on antibody testing and where lockdown may have increased virus spread, and most foreign nationals banned from entering the country, the government has chosen an odd time to care about the scourge of… inflight photography.
While the government announced the backing of a $370 million loan to the airline as part of its bankruptcy restructuring, a Colombian court has now blocked the government aid. This matters to Americans invested in the LifeMiles frequent flyer program, which provides access to cheap purchase of miles and reasonably priced awards on Star Alliance airlines.
In a shrinking industry airline unions become akin to a Ponzi scheme, benefiting the first in at the expense of those who joined later. When American Airlines took payroll support money from the government, they paid senior flight attendants to stay home while making junior cabin crew work all of the flights. And while neither Southwest nor Delta are furloughing any flight attendants, it’s the junior crewmembers at American and United that are losing their jobs at the beginning of October.
One British Airways union is even appealing to the company to furlough workers – from a rival union.
With U.S. airlines eliminating change fees on domestic trips (excluding basic economy fares), will that least to more cancellations? And will higher cancellation rates mean that airlines need to overbook flights more than before?
If more people can change plans without penalty, will we have more people changing plans – so more people not taking the seats they’ve booked? Will that mean airlines need to sell even more seats for each flight to make up for it?
American Airlines announced they were going to stop serving 15 cities once government payroll subsidies ran out, and they were no longer required to fly to all of their pre-existing markets.
They’ve backtracked on several of those changes. The latest is Stillwater, Oklahoma where the airport put out a press release basically announcing that their Senators traded political support for air service.
Airlines generally have specially picked cabin crew for public relations and VIP events. These flights aren’t assigned by seniority at many airlines.
On Wednesday American Airlines gave instructions to all of its phone representatives on how to handle complaints related to the airline’s allowing crewmembers to wear Black Lives Matter pins on their uniforms.
On board and inflight is one of the safest indoor environments from a Covid-19 transmission perspective. But that doesn’t mean that travel is safe. Most planes (but not smaller regional jets and turboprops) have HEPA air filtration that’s highly protective.
That doesn’t mean the virus doesn’t spread. Often when this and other viruses are attributed to flights it’s likely spreading at airport security, in the gate area, or on the jet bridge. These are places where passengers congregate closely together and where the air isn’t filtered as well.
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 »
