Category Archives for Airlines.
At an employee event last week, a flight attendant asked American Airlines CEO Doug Parker about the poor new domestic product – and what she’s supposed to tell customers when they ask her about the small lavatories and about the crammed-in seats.
After the close of markets on Thursday Delta announced they’re acquiring 20% of LATAM. That’s huge for Delta giving them a big presence in Latin America, on top of owning 49% of Aeromexico.
This positions Delta well to grow in American’s back yard of Miami and it undercuts American’s South America flights by denying them connecting feed, and blocks American’s joint venture with LATAM (which would have had to exclude Chile flights). And it really sticks it to the CEO of Qatar Airways given their 10% stake in LATAM.
You’re supposed to be at your seat for takeoff and landing of course, and there’s no seat belt in the lavatory. However on Wednesday’s United Airlines UA1554 non-stop from Washington National to San Francisco, the flight had to divert to Denver when a passenger got stuck in the lavatory.
The passenger had to sit on the throne for landing, and United mechanics were sent in for a rescue.
Delta announced that they’re taking a 20% stake in LATAM, the largest airline conglomerate in South America comprised of LATAM Argentina, Brasil, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, and Perú.
American Airlines had worked towards a joint venture with LATAM but it was rejected by Chile’s Supreme Court this spring. LATAM will exit the oneworld alliance, although no plans have been announced for their entrance to SkyTeam.
The most striking thing about the incident is that someone actually measured the missing item to find that it was about 10 inches long. There’s no information, however, about its width or color.
A week ago American’s Vice President of Planning, Vasu Raja, told employees it would be “in the next several weeks” that the airline would announce their new Tokyo Haneda flights. The holdup was coordinating with joint venture partner Japan Airlines so that the two carriers could together so that in Los Angeles they could offer “a really separated pattern where every 2 or 3 hours there’s an American flight or a JAL flight much like what we have at JFK – Heathrow today.”
The airline did not wait for this and is instead out with details of their two new flights to Tokyo Haneda
Singapore Airlines offers perhaps the best main meals of any airline in premium cabins, although I’ve always found their snack service to be lacking.
The best feature is “Book the Cook” which isn’t just pre-order something that’s going to be on the plane anyway, but an extensive menu of specialty items to choose from in advance that the airline will have on board for you.
Based on comments by American Airlines top executives at an employee meeting last week, the airline is working on a Tokyo Haneda shuttle schedule at LAX. They’re preparing to send Boeing 787s into the Pacific. And they’re looking forward to new Boeing 787 aircraft deliveries that they intend to fly 7000 miles – to places like India and Africa.
Austin has been one of the fastest growing airports in the country in recent years. This year they increased the number of available gates at the airport by 37%. While the amount of long haul international flying is limited, there’s London service from British Airways and Norwegian and Lufthansa started flying to Frankfurt back in May.
Delta has named Austin a focus city. While the largest airlines at Austin, in order, are Southwest, American, United and then Delta the addition of new gates will allow Delta to grow – and the gap between the three large U.S. legacy airlines isn’t that large to begin with.
United shared this morning that they’re revamping their confirmed regional and global upgrade certificates that Platinum elites and higher are able to take advantage of effective December 4. They’re introducing a new upgrade points system to replace certificates called PlusPoints, and existing banked certificates will convert to PlusPoints at that time.
I received a briefing on the changes from Luc Bondar, United’s Vice President of Loyalty who is in charge of MileagePlus. Here’s how upgrades are changing.
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 »
