Category Archives for Airlines.
Southwest Airlines is turning Orlando into a mini-connecting hub for short haul intra-Florida routes, adding flights to Miami, Fort Myers, West Palm Beach and Sarasota to their existing Fort Lauderdale route.
American AAdvantage is the best program for earning status beyond simply flying. It has the best partner award redemption pricing. But there’s one area where American AAdvantage has lagged behind all of its competitors: rewarding customers with lifetime elite status.
Starting March 1, 2025 they’re revamping the AAdvantage Million Mile program.
Poor quality wifi is something that I avoid when choosing an airline. It costs airlines ticket revenue. While the cost of wifi is part of the cost of travel – airlines that bundle it in with ticket price become more competitive, while charging separately makes little sense when it’s possible to offer it at near-zero marginal cost once installed on the aircraft.
United Airlines flight attendants haven’t had a raise in four years, as contract negotiations drag on. The union says that the airline is making unreasonable demands, like only paying health care benefits for flight attendants who work.
Reconfiguring planes and buying new seats is expensive, and JetBlue is slashing costs. But perhaps the biggest takeaway is that squeezing these seats in is expected to mean less legroom in the coach cabin. JetBlue is, once again, making itself more like the rest of the industry.
A passenger took a photo of the refugee camp setup that Brazil’s Gol airlines uses as the crew rest area on its Boeing 737 MAX, flying from Brasilia to Orlando. That flight is scheduled at 8 hours 20 minutes. One person on social media offered, “I believe most people call this a blanket fort.”
Mileage Plan has 11 million active members, over 3 million cobrand cardmembers, and over 600,000 elite members. They value their program at over $12 billion.
The American Airlines fleet of Airbus A320s is a mess, and should really be put out of their misery. Since the airline has gone over a decade without investing in them, they’re dragging down already low expectations for customer experience at the airline.
It’s usually first class on these planes, but here’s a coach seat that’s allowed to fly.
The pair then found themselves without tickets home. They were treated as no shows for their outbound flight, so their return trip was cancelled. They bought Alaska Airlines flights again, Seattle to San Diego.
This is a mess all the way around, but there are lessons.
Alaska has shared that the move to a single loyalty program will come this summer, and that they’ll also launch a premium credit card at that time.
To build a marketing list for the premium credit card in support of its launch, they’ve created an ‘early access list’ with free miles.
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 »
