Category Archives for Airlines.
Andrew Nocella, United’s executive vice president and chief commercial officer – who came to United with Scott Kirby and who was responsible for many of the negative changes at American Airlines once legacy US Airways management took over – offered some important observations about their customers at the airline’s media day.
American Airlines has added a second daily Dallas Fort-Worth – Rome flight for a limited summer season, July 2nd through August 17. That’s a peak of peak travel period.
While the pre-existing daily flights, AA239 and AA240, appear to rarely if every offer award or upgrade space (as we have come to expect from American Airlines), this new flight appears to have upgrade but no award space open every single day and indeed open with enough seats for the whole family.
Back on August 22, a Smartwings Boeing 737-800 took off from Samos, Greece. Flight QS1125 was headed to Prague with 170 people on board. About 100 nautical miles northeast of Athens the aircraft’s left engine shut down while at 36,000 feet.
The crew tried to restart the engine while descending to 24,000 feet. The engine wouldn’t restart. The captain decided not to declare an emergency.
Yesterday I shared 7 things United Airlines shared during the morning session fo their Media Day on Friday.
Here are 5 things the airline shared during the afternoon.
American’s new overhead bins have enough space for each passenger on a full plane to bring a standard-sized carry on bag on board, which means passengers shouldn’t have to gate check their bags. That’s great for passengers, and also for the airline because gate checking can cause delays.
With more bags inside than before, the overhead bins can get heavy and difficult to close. It turns out there’s a trick to it.
At the United Airlines media day executives at the carrier shared what a review of 365 days of ticket purchases on the United website showed about the cheapest days to buy travel and the cheapest days to travel.
United Airlines is launching their new premium regional jet configuration on board what they are calling the Bombardier CRJ-550. United can’t add more regional jets for large numbers of passengers. So they’re putting just 50 seats in a plane that can fit 50% more. This new aircraft makes its first commercial flight this Sunday, October 27th.
There are some positives – and, I think, real negatives – to this new aircraft. And it’s unclear United will even keep it in service if they get the deal they want from pilots in a new contract.
A flight attendant claims she caught two Southwest pilots live-streaming the lavatory into the cockpit for their viewing. This is when they were supposed to be flying their plane.
“The flight attendant entered the cockpit when one of the pilots went to use the lavatory. She noticed an iPad with the lavatory video feed. The co-pilot “panicked when he realized she noticed the device..[and] claimed it was part of a new security measure featured on all Southwest flights.”
Customers flying first class on regional jets have traditionally been given a ‘yellow tag’ for their carry on. The purpose is so that those bags get priority.
Starting November 11th these yellow tags will become an Executive Platinum and ConciergeKey benefit. Instead of just being available to first class passengers (on regional jets with first class), they’ll also be a top tier elite benefit when those customers are flying coach.
I’m at United’s Media Day in Chicago and the morning session gave me seven key takeaways, from new overhead bins to free baggage delivery to Marriott hotel rooms and a new member-driven charity program in MileagepPlus.
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 »
