Category Archives for Airlines.
Plans for Alaska Airlines to bring widebody flying to Seattle and launch long haul routes are big news, and the airline is also sharing the timeline to merge frequent flyer programs with Hawaiian Airlines and introduce a premium credit card.
To keep crewmembers fired up, the union sent out a communication to members listing all of the items that United has sought to change in their favor in the new contract.
In perhaps the most penny pinching move yet that also best symbolizes the direction they’ve headed, JetBlue has started to charge $2 for Bloody Mary Mix. And by the way, it’s the same brand – but a smaller 7.5 ounce can – as what United, Delta and Southwest offer for free.
This new Taittinger partnership hasn’t been officially announced yet, but it seems to be rolling out, and it’s even being highlighted by the airline in its social. That’s about a $45 retail bottle, which is more than respectable for U.S. airline business class.
A passenger on a delayed Delta flight got himself stuck in the plane’s lavatory shortly after takeoff. He managed to get “locked in there somehow” and couldn’t figure out how to get out. The lock was sticking, several flight attendants couldn’t free him, and finally “one of the pilots..got the job done with a butter knife.”
At the beginning of the year, Trump-aligned American First Legal complained to the Department of Labor that American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, and United Airlines were using employment quotes that are illegal as government contractors.
As a result of these complaints, Southwest Airlines now says that they will not discriminate in hiring and promotion.
American Airlines plans to ask the FAA to certify their new Boeing 787-9P with one fewer flight attendant, but has told their union this is just so they could operate the plane that way if they had to – it’s not how they’re going to schedule the aircraft (although I wonder if they would on any domestic or short-haul international segments the plane operates).
A year and a half ago President Biden announced new rules coming to require airlines to pay cash compensation for flight delays and cancellations. Think of it as the U.S.’s answer to Europe’s ‘EU261’ compensation.
They didn’t actually do anything with this while they still could. Their new proposal isn’t yet fully baked, and likely won’t advance farther.
Along with announcing a deal with Citibank that will make them the exclusive issuer of U.S. American Airlines AAdvantage credit cards, the carrier filed an SEC 8-K that offers some limited detail on the financial affects of the 10-year pact.
It turns out that airlines may be missing out on the big money? New technology makes it possible to use spare electricity on planes to mine crypto. And the company that came out with an announcement about this today saw its stock shoot up over 60%.
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 »
