Category Archives for Airlines.
Throughout 2023, American Airlines was promising that anything you wanted to do with the airline could be done digitally – with the few remaining features to be delivered by the end of the year. I kept asking, just as a glaring example of what was missing, what about upgrades?
Elliott has been talking to institutional shareholders. I can’t imagine they call for a vote they don’t think they can win. And that would mean that Southwest ousts its CEO and more closely follows Elliott’s prescriptions which turn the airline into JetBlue and American Airlines – more fees, fewer perks.
On last week’s Delta Air Lines earnings call, executives “drum[med] up excitement for premium product announcements in November.” That’s when the airline is holding its Investor Day, and they’ve already told us what to expect: ‘basic business class,’ doing to the premium cabin what they’ve already done to coach.
An American Airlines passenger says that one of the flight attendants on board their recent Airbus narrowbody flight handed out Kamala Harris chocolate bars. He took to social media for an explanation from the airline… but then conceded that the chocolate bar was actually “kinda good.”
The American Airlines – Hyatt partnership isn’t about ‘rewarding us.’ The partnership is about looking for new customers for each brand. And these changes are designed to align marketing dollars with corporate objectives.
Wednesday afternoon’s United Airlines flight 557 from Charleston to Denver left about half an hour late. During the flight, a lavatory toilet started spewing water, according to a passenger on board. It came from one of the lavatories by the rear galley of the Boeing 737 MAX 8.
When working on your own strategy for this challenge, don’t forget fifth freedom routes. You don’t have to fly Virgin Atlantic across the Atlantic, for instance. You can do that with another SkyTeam airline, and hop on a short Virgin flight in the Caribbean like Barbados to St. Vincent or Granada. Other carriers have similar unexpected short (and usually inexpensive) options too – such as KLM’s Singapore – Bali and Kuala Lumpur – Jakarta.
Not all of these are going to work! So surely they won’t all last. Maybe they’re trying too hard, taking too many chances with a large incoming fleet of planes. But they’re certainly playing an exciting game at United. It’s not small ball. In total United will serve more than 40 destinations across the Atlantic and 147 total international destinations.
If you flew last month, you probably got where you were going – and got there on time. Airline operations improved dramatically in September compared to August. Delta Air Lines flights arrived on-time nearly 88% of the time. Incredibly, United Airlines was right behind them, followed by Southwest and then by American Airlines.
I don’t think we have enough to really pin the blame here on Delta, but their customer wasn’t safe on their plane and 4,000 SkyMiles is an insult, since the currency is so low value and the number itself is so de minimis. They should do better here.
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 »
