Category Archives for Airlines.
United Airlines President Scott Kirby declares that new low cost carriers cannot succeed because United will match their pricing. Kirby’s view seems extremely misguided for four simple reasons.
Frequent flyer award tickets are supposed to reward loyalty. They don’t feel very rewarding when they come with a cash co-pay in the form of fuel surcharges which — for economy redemptions — can be almost as much as the cost of a paid ticket. (We’ve even seen instances in the past where British Airways fuel surcharges on an award ticket were more expensive than the cheapest fare you could buy with cash.)
Hawaiian Airlines accidentally started imposing the mother of all carrier-imposed surcharges on its awards last week, and they are “deeply sorry.”
Two weeks ago I wrote that Via Air hadn’t shown up at an airport they were supposed to fly to and no one knew why. Even the airport itself couldn’t reach the airline to learn more.
Now it appears that airline has shut down its commercial service entirely, with the exception of a single route. The airline is blaming a lack of pilots. Two weeks ago they also blamed the FAA for “slower and more methodical” oversight following the grounding of the Boeing 737 MAX, an aircraft Via Air did not operate.
Airlines have an incentive to blame factors beyond their control for delays. If the cause is weather, air traffic control, or a similar issue they’re going to owe customers a lot less (if anything at all) compared to when a delay is ‘controllable’ or their fault — such as when a flight goes mechanical or when crew simply don’t show up. (EU rules are somewhat stricter.)
Customers can be sitting at their home airport and will get frustrated when they’re delayed by weather only to look out the window at blue skies, knowing weather is clear at their destination.
Prior to deregulation the Civil Aeronautics Board ‘experimented’ with the idea of price competition and allowed airlines to undercut Southwest Airlines prices. Southwest, flying only inside Texas at the time, wasn’t subject to CAB price regulation.
Texas International Airlines (which would later acquire Continental, Eastern, People Express, and Frontier) along with Braniff started offering $13 fares between Houston and Dellas. Not to be undercut, Southwest introduced a two-tiered fare structure, rebating each customer paying full fare with a bottle of liquor. Southwest became the largest liquor distributor in the state of Texas.
Historically awards between the US and New Zealand have been one of the toughest things to book. Years ago Air New Zealand used to open up business class awards 60 days prior to flight. Then they stopped. With a couple of brief exceptions there really hasn’t been meaningful Air New Zealand business class award space in years.
Up until today, this was a unicorn. Or snuffaluffagus. There were rumors of Air New Zealand business class award space, but no one knew if it actually existed.
My American Airlines flight from Austin to Chicago was delayed 5 hours on Tuesday. The plane was there, skies were clear, and though American had just sued their mechanics the day before there were no maintenance issues. Instead we didn’t have a crew.
I was up front for the flight and I wondered how the planned 8:15 a.m. flight would be catered. Usually when my morning flights have been delayed past noon we’ve still been served breakfast.
The Transportation Workers Union has posted a piece of video from Tuesday’s LaGuardia airport employee question and answer session with American’s President Robert Isom, where the union President goes off on an extended rant.
He declares that the situation may “erupt[..] into the bloodiest ugliest battle that the United States labor movement ever saw that’s what’s gonna happen” and suggests that “if we ever get to the point where there’s self-help we are gonna engage in absolutely vicious strike action against American Airlines the likes of which you’ve never seen.”
Lufthansa’s transatlantic joint venture partner United Airlines eliminated award charts and introduced dynamic award pricing to their own flights (but still prices partner awards based on their hidden chart). Here they followed Delta’s lead.
Now a Lufthansa executive has revealed that the Miles & Mile program plans to move to dynamic pricing of awards.
Air Italy, 49% owned by Qatar Airways, is a partner of British Airways and their mileage currency is Avios.
The airline will sell top tier Gold status for 500 euros (US$558) or Silver status for 200 euros (US$223).
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 »
