Category Archives for Airlines.
Southwest doesn’t want people automatically checking in 24 hours out, because it might cut into Early Bird check-in revenue. They don’t want people automatically checking price changes, because consumers might save money. They want self-service to be hard. And it’s both fine and reasonable to want those things. It’s neither fine nor reasonable for the government to subsidize those things by threatening innovators who want to use publicly available information.
Lights placed on tall structures so that planes see them – and don’t hit them – are vulnerable to hacking. They can be turned off. Remotely. Via the internet.
There hasn’t been an incident, but the vulnerability was uncovered by security researcher Amitay Dan and confirmed by an FAA official.
In October the President of Thai Airways told employees that the airline was on the verge of shutting down with only a month’s runway to execute a turnaround. The airline promptly worked to walk that back, suggesting it was hyperbolic, but it nonetheless underscored that Thai Airways is underperforming and in financial difficulty, propped up by the Thai government.
There are four major underlying issues faced by the flag carrier.
Two American Eagle flights had to be cancelled when the Bombardier CR-9 regional jets operated by Mesa Airlines were hit by a fuel truck this morning while preparing for departure at the Dallas Fort-Worth B terminal. One aircraft was headed to McAllen, Texas, while the other one was about to head to Albuquerque.
Video of the incident is… just…
All of the bank currencies transfer miles to Air France. A reader redeemed miles to fly San Francisco – Paris – Lyon, and was offered the option to buy up to first class. He wound up earning nearly 20,000 miles.
On Thursday a frequent flyer shared a story of taking on the role of flight attendant when the American Eagle first class crewmember was neglecting her duties.
Reading through the terms and conditions of Delta’s flash sale offering business class to Europe for just 98,000 miles roundtrip, I stumbled across something unusual in the terms and conditions that’s sort of scary.
When only one premium cabin seat is available do you decide that sitting together is more important, even if it’s less comfortable in back? Offer it up to your less frequent flying partner? Gladly take it yourself, you earned it?
Delta Air Lines is a fierce competitor. They play hard ball, whether it’s with politicians, with airlines they’d like to partner with, or with customers. I’ve said before that in a 50-50 deal, Delta takes the hyphen.
At this month’s American Airlines employee question and answer session with senior executives, the airline’s downward spiral in New York came up. The response to this was “We do love New York, I know it doesn’t seem like that with what we’ve done.”
By reducing flying out of New York, American becomes less relevant to New Yorkers and has fewer customers to support the flying that’s left.
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 »
