Category Archives for Airlines.
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.
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.
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 »
