Category Archives for Airlines.
Good executives own their failures, just as they’re rewarded for their successes. Good companies arrange their institutions and incentives so that this is the case – rather than packing their boards with cronies who reward failure as much as success.
Cape Air won approval to start flights from Boston Harbor to New York City, at East 23rd St. in Manhattan. This is a one year pilot program for four flights a day.
Currently Amtrak is desirable for its downtown-to-downtown service, making up for slow train speeds by avoiding commutes for passengers looking to travel between city centers. This service offers to cut out the airport transit while retaining the speed of flying, though of course is subject to weather more than train travel. The major limitation, however, is frequency.
Thirty two year old JetBlue JFK-based flight attendant Christine Mathis says she first started getting confused for Meghan Markle in 2011 when passengers would say she ‘looked like that girl from Suits‘ on USA. It picked up when Markle married Prince Harry. She says passengers would ask her why she was working as a flight attendant after marrying a royal?
Now that they’ve been in the news constantly over Megxit she’s signed on with a talent agency as a professional lookalike.
One passenger shared the meal they were served in first class on an American Eagle breakfast flight from New York LaGuardia to Atlanta. It looks like a broken up granola pieces sandwich and that’s what the passenger thought that it was, describing it as “the driest sandwich known to mankind” although they “thought it was chorizo too at first.”
HNA group has struggled under a mountain of $100 billion worth of debt. They’ve been unable to pay employees or pay for fuel at Hong Kong Airlines. And that was before coronavirus.
In addition to airline stakes they own stakes in airline caterer Gate Gourmet and Hilton Hotels.
It’s been tough to be an American AAdvantage member over the last several years if you actually want to use your miles to fly American. Since US Airways management took over in the final days of 2013, far fewer passengers have been traveling on American using their miles. That’s largely the result of a lack of saver award inventory.
The airline pledged to change that, and just released new numbers to the SEC that says how they’re doing.
American Airlines started letting customers pre-select their meals online when they’re flying in premium cabins back in the fall of 2012. Delta didn’t roll out this feature until early 2019 and United is still in testing.
While American moved forward with pre-orders for buy on board in coach, they didn’t actually extend pre-orders to first class on regional jets. That’s finally changing.
Qatar Airways owns 9.99% of Cathay Pacific, 5% of China Southern (double American’s stake), and 10% of LATAM. They owned 49% of Air Italy before that carrier shut down. Their biggest remaining investment is in IAG, the parent of British Airways, Iberia, Aer Lingus, Vueling and soon Air Europa.
Qatar owned 21.4% of the British Airways parent – and has now increased that to 25.1%.
United has a program called ConnectionSaver to hold planes for connecting passengers where it won’t cause system or other passenger delays. United expects 25% of flights to arrive 10 minutes early (or more) every day. So holding plenty of flights still allows for on time arrivals.
American doesn’t defer to a computer for this. Their operations center can make the decision to hold a flight, for instance when there are a large number of connecting passengers they’ll have difficulty accommodating in the event of a misconnect. However there are 3 cases where gate agents are allowed allowed to hold the boarding door for customers past 10 minutes to departure.
The Senior Director of Corporate Communications for Borden Dairy was flying American Airlines from Dallas Fort-Worth to Charleston, South Carolina with her CEO. The CEO insisted she take his first class seat. However she reports that an hour into the flight a flight attendant realized she wasn’t the passenger on the manifest. That’s when things got heated.
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 »
