Category Archives for Airlines.
At the American Airlines ‘State of the Airline’ meeting with employees following Thursday’s earnings call, CEO Doug Parker explained why he believes American’s shares have performed horrendously.
He’s a momentum investor and he believes the market is backward-looking.
Brexit – and the politicians it has placed in power – are bringing a more nationalist industrial policy to Britain. The latest target is Emirates and their ‘over the top’ first class experience which needs to be taxed, in the view of some, to protect British Airways.
While American’s claims against Boeing will likely be settled amicably, the airline has a hard case to make that Boeing ought to reimburse them for any lost profits when it’s more likely that the grounding of the MAX simply averted losses.
I finally had my first taste of the Spirit Airlines Big Front Seat. On my way home Chicago O’Hare to Austin after United Airlines Media Day I flew Spirit Airlines. I bought my one-way in a “Big Front Seat” (a domestic first class-ish seat without extra benefits) for $118.29. A coach seat on American or United would have been $225 and I’d have had to wait around the airport two and a half hours longer for either. Spirit seemed like a no-brainer.
On Wednesday morning I debated Stifel Managing Director Joseph DeNardi on whether or not to spin off frequent flyer programs at the Airline Information MEGA event in Florida.
Joe is the best-known face of the argument that loyalty programs are the primary drivers of revenue and value for airlines, and he’s argued that the overall businesses are undervalued because investors don’t clearly see how much good, high margin revenue is coming in from credit card partnerships versus from the airline as old-line industrial. He was charged with defending the idea of spinning programs off into a separate business, and I was charged with arguing against this.
Each year the American Airlines management team does a musical performance – all dressed up for Halloween. This year it was Lil Nas X’s ‘Old Town Road’ filmed around their new Skyview campus.
CEO Doug Parker stepped into the role of Billy Ray Cyrus.
United has held firm that they can take a customer’s money for a lifetime service and change the terms (the “our fingers were crossed” rule). Unlike Delta and American, people who purchased lifetime United Club memberships cannot continue to use United Clubs unless they’re flying United or designated partners same day.
To me United’s decision undermines CEO Oscar Munoz’s credibility to claims that the airline is motivated by a desire to do the right thing for customers. It all come down to trust. But then what do you think their elimination of award charts means?
Customers at a certain value (in this case buying the most expensive fares when other customers tend not to be doing so) should be able to use their miles any time they wish without penalty. And it’s worth letting them do so even if the flight they might book onto would otherwise be full.
A German-language blog has discovered two mistakenly-published pieces of information from Lufthansa Miles & More.
Back in January when American Airlines introduced award redemption for premium economy they did it through a new award search tool. That new tool was not ready for prime time. After half a year that tool still lacked the ability to filter results, and the availability calendar still hadn’t been launched.
American has a new availability calendar. It still isn’t as useful as the old one. Here’s what to watch out for to get the best award deals.
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 »
