Category Archives for Airlines.
Changes need to be made for customer reservations where travel was booked on codeshares that will no longer exist. Where a customer was booked on an American Airlines-coded LATAM flight, they’re being rebooked onto the same flight with a LATAM flight number (and vice versa). Apparently the automated process at American to do this didn’t work properly for some reservations.
I read through the 112 page Department of Transportation approval for renovations at New York JFK terminal 8, which will facilitate the British Airways co-location with American, and learned several interesting things about the project.
The most significant new information I gleaned from the document is that American and British Airways will operate a shared lounge and that there will be a dedicated premium passenger path directly to the lounge. I don’t think I had realized though that the total number of gates in the terminal would actually decrease with this work to accommodate more widebodies.
Starting March 29 United will run 13 daily flights between the two cities. Ten of those flights will be using the airline’s new premium-heavy regional jet they’ve dubbed the ‘CRJ-550’ and 3 flights will be on larger Embraer 175s.
United can offer more flights – frequency is attractive to business travelers – offering fewer seats per flight on average. And they’re offering a product on 10 of the flights where they’re putting just 50 seats on the plane that’s designed for 40% more than that. Plenty of space per passenger is attractive, too.
American Airlines has 9 hubs: Dallas Fort-Worth, Chicago O’Hare, Charlotte, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Miami, Philadelphia, New York JFK, and Washington National. Given recent service changes perhaps they should drop New York JFK and add Boston.
United Airlines will remove bag sizers from boarding gates by January 23. They say they will be more aggressive at check-in and that sizers will remain at security checkpoints, but that at the gate agents are supposed to ‘use their judgment’.
United has been inviting its business class customers to contract lounges in about 30 cities, and they’ve extended this option to Star Alliance members are well even though they aren’t required to.
Now United has mostly eliminated the practice. Except at two airports United no longer invites Star Alliance Gold members (who aren’t flying business class) to use contract lounges. This move (naturally) follows one made a few years ago by Delta.
Air India hasn’t made payroll for December yet. The airline has an Airbus narrowbody grounded because it needs an engine replacement. The airline owns the engine. It can’t afford to send the engine to where the plane is.
A year and a half ago JetBlue was first to raise its first checked bag fee to $30 and other U.S. airlines followed. Now they’re a leader in fees again, raising their first checked bag fee to $35. However they’ll still charge $30 as long as the fee is paid online in advance (prior to the online check-in window opening).
A man posted a video of himself where he explains how he scammed a business class upgrade. He bought an orthopedic in an airport pharmacy and looked like he’d hurt himself and needed assistance to walk. Then he feigned difficulty sitting in his coach seat with the boot on. Cathay Pacific moved him up to business class.
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.
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 »
