Airlines

Category Archives for Airlines.

US Government Tentatively Approves Anti-Trust Immunity for American Airlines and Qantas

by Gary Leff

sydney opera house at sunset
Jun 03 2019

Three and a half years ago American Airlines and Qantas announced an expanded joint venture. American was launching Sydney and Auckland service, Qantas Sydney – San Francisco. And they indicated there would be more new routes in the offing as a result of the partnership.

They proposed to extend their partnership to coordinate schedules and pricing and share revenue on Pacific flights (but not Hawaii routes). The Obama administration said no. The Trump administration has now said yes.

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The Destruction of 6 Dallas Love Field Gates Could Be Headed to the Supreme Court

by Gary Leff

airline
Jun 03 2019

Southwest Airlines started out as an underdog fighting government cronyism meant to keep it from flying. Now it’s the beneficiary of government cronyism meant to keep others from flying. The Supreme Court isn’t going to undo that, though Congress should. However the court could fix an important precedent that allowed Love Field gates to be taken from their owner without payment.

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Another Southwest Flight Attendant Cares for Baby Inflight, this Great Service is Getting Ridiculous

by Gary Leff

man and baby
Jun 02 2019

The Dowell family found three seats together in the last row of their Boeing 737-800, and were struggling to juggle their bags and accoutrements for their baby. That’s when Wesley, one of the flight attendants on board, offered to hold 9-month old Alayna while they got themselves situated.

She was “screaming her head off for quite a while” while inflight so Wesley came back and offered to take her — walking her up and down the aisle, shushing her, and calming her. He did this for 15 minutes, “rubbing her back, walking up and down the aisle like it was just a day in the park” before returning her to her parents where she fell asleep.

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THAI Smile Joining Star Alliance as a Connecting Partner

by Gary Leff

plane with smile on it
Jun 01 2019

THAThai Airways has transferred a lot of its domestic and regional flying to THAI Smile, its lower cost subsidiary which operates 20 Airbus A320 aircraft. That makes award travel to many Thai cities problematic, because THAI Smile isn’t a Star Alliance member so miles from United, Aeroplan, LifeMiles and other Star programs don’t allow redemption on THAI Smile flights.

Thai Airways itself no longer operates any narrowbody aircraft.

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Delta Trapped Flight Attendants on a Plane to Avoid Cancelling a Flight

by Gary Leff

delta plane
Jun 01 2019

Delta is known for their operational reliability. But the very true saying goes ‘you get what you measure’. Since Delta doesn’t want to cancel flights they will do take extreme steps to fudge the numbers. Sometimes instead of ‘cancelling’ a flight they’ll just ‘delay’ it a day.

On May 12, it seems, an employee in operations took the edict not to cancel flights too far. The Toronto flight faced a maintenance delay, and crew at the end of their duty delay. Flight attendants were reaching the point where they would have to volunteer to keep working or the flight wouldn’t leave.

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