Category Archives for Airlines.
Having a variety of unique questions with free form answers is one solution. In fact, I applaud JetBlue for taking this approach. One of the questions, though, is stirring controversy on social media.
Travelers hate airline fees, whether it’s checked bag fees or change fees, so it’s a great issue for politicians to grandstand on. The FAIR Fees Act is not a serious proposal.
American viewed the Chilean portion of a LATAM joint venture as ‘not a huge piece’ and they wanted to get the agreement done with the carrier across the rest of South America – not matter what story they’re telling now, with Delta poaching the LATAM partnership.
I’m actually somewhat sympathetic to the defendant here because New York JFK is, after all, owned by the Port Authority of New York New Jersey and it’s I think it’s reasonable to assume that’s just how business is done there.
The higher rate of growth in the airline’s seat capacity next year comes from moving forward when they expect the Boeing 737 MAX to fly again. Parker, of course, has been overly optimistic on the return of the MAX before, suggesting re-certification of the plane was ‘really close’ back in May.
Paying a name chef to associate with the airline meals is a way to announce the airline cares about its food. And if consumers believe the name chef cares about their reputation at all, they won’t put their name on the food unless it meets certain standards. It’s also not very expensive for an airline to rent the chef’s name relative to the total cost of the meals provided.
A celebrity chef doesn’t guarantee a good meal, in fact if a chef is putting their names on an airline meal you should downgrade your estimation of the chef. It means they’re more interested in the revenue stream from branding than maintaining quality for the simple reason that they cannot possibly replicate the restaurant quality of their means in the air, heated in an airplane galley, and plated by US airline flight attendants.
There are several clues that suggest Singapore Airlines may use their A350 Ultra Long Range to launch Chicago – Singapore non-stop starting in fall 2020.
Every business can do this, cloak their self-interested lobbying in the mantle of benefit for a broader public good. Indeed, most businesses who seek to profit by political rather than economic means do this today. It’s just exceptionally common in the airline industry, where government corruption has run rife on consumer interests for a hundred years.
This is much better than the olden days when everyone on a plane watched the same thing because there were just overhead monitors, and one thing playing on all of them. On an American Airlines flight from Sydney to Honolulu to Dallas back in 1991 they kept playing John Goodman’s King Ralph over and over – and I wanted to impeach the airline’s Vice President of Inflight.
It’s sad that United maintained they weren’t making changes to partner award pricing – and then did so immediately on the very day they eliminated close-in booking fees in cash.
As a general matter they appear to be charging more for close-in redemption of United flights, too – so there’s no ‘fee’ for close-in booking, just a mileage penalty.
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 »
