Category Archives for Airlines.
American Airlines flight attendants will soon pay 48% higher union dues under a plan they’re being asked to vote for. The union is “calling this a dues restructure instead of a dues increase” even though dues will increase. They’re using this language because it isn’t just a single dues increase, but a system of automatic increases that raise dues 48% during the current contract.
Cathay Pacific finds itself managing a crisis because their inflight entertainment system provided access to an episode of The Family Guy.
Cathay apologizes, blames a third party that handles their inflight content, and promises that they’ve provided proper “instructions to ensure that the recommended content meets” State Party censor demands “our company standards.”
JetBlue is back with more major changes to their flying, trying to stem the tide of losses. In a tweetstorm (albeit on Bluesky), aviation watchdog JonNYC lays out changes to routes that JetBlue will be making, both to its Europe flights and to domestic operations from New York, Miami and Seattle and more – changes that the airline hasn’t announced yet.
The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs’ Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations held a hearing today on airline fees. It’s the end of this session of Congress, the chair is losing his position as control of the Senate changes party. So there was one last opportunity for grandstanding against airlines, who are a popular punching bag.
Sometimes airlines make it easy! But most of the punching would make for bad policy in ways that would drive up the cost of travel and leave consumers worse off.
United Airlines sent out an email to all of its employees about planned wage increases – but this was meant to go out to only corporate non-union employees. Flight attendants, who remain in protracted negotiations with the airline, are apparently furious. Their last raise was in 2021.
United Airlines flight 4830 from Little Rock to Houston diverted to Monroe, Louisiana on Monday due to reported smell of smoke in the cockpit. The Embraer 145 regional jet (registration N14148) was operated by CommutAir and originally delivered to Expressjet in 2003.
There were a few interesting things about this flight.
The carrier has changed the way they sell tickets, offering fare bundles rather than a la carte and more premium services. Now they’re taking it a step further.
United does something really unique, and I was genuinely surprised by it five years ago at launch. Instead of picking their own corporate charities, and asking you to support their efforts with your miles, they allow charities to solicit miles directly. You actually decide which causes to support. That way your miles align with your values.
The airline has gotten very good about merchandising premium seats – and is willing to sell them very cheap, especially as upsells to infrequent flyers. They want to take a few tens of dollars from a once a year customer rather than upgrading a very frequent flyer who spends tens of thousands of dollars. Delta is also most likely to skip processing upgrade lists at the gate of the major airlines.
After 9/11, the cockpit gets blocked off when the door is opened. A pilot goes to the lavatory, and no one can approach the front of the aircraft. That makes sense, but the flipside is that this should be reserved only for the pilot’s important needs. Here, a Southwest Airlines pilot flying from Dallas Love Field to Los Angeles reportedly spends a part of the flight chatting up a flight attendant, while passengers are forced to wait to use the lavatory. That seems like bad judgment to me – and actually illegal!
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 »
