Category Archives for Airlines.
Earlier today the US government announced its approval for American and Qantas to join forces in an anti-trust immunized revenue-sharing joint venture across the Pacific.
The combination is already announcing they’ll roll out two new routes, including the longest Qantas route from the U.S. and fourth-longest flight in the world.
The last major airline to add a hub was Delta — at Seattle — in 2014. Now Delta, which has been building its presence in Boston and taking on JetBlue there, has declared that city to be a hub. Although with 150 peak day departures I see Boston more as a ‘hublet’.
West Coast – Europe award travel is tough, getting premium cabin to Europe on American Airlines (and thus not paying surcharges) is tougher still. This is definitely worth taking ‘AAdvantage’ of. And if you have a stash of Etihad Guest miles, ring up about your preferred itinerary to see if they can book for 50,000 miles each way in business (vs. 57,500 from American) or 62,500 in first.
However if there was any doubt that American’s married segment award availability logic was in play for premium cabin awards now (and with ensuing negative consequences for making changes to awards) this should illustrate the extension beyond coach — and is a part of dynamic availability if not pricing.
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.
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.
The only club at the airport is the USO Lounge. There’s no American, United, or Delta lounges, and no Priority Pass or other pay-in lounge.
HMSHost, though, is advertising for an Admirals Club bartender.
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.
Apparently — and unsurprisingly — Star Alliance member airlines were resistant to giving new benefits to a higher tier of alliance partner elite, preferring to keep exclusive benefits for their own elites and for joint venture partner airlines.
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.
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.
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 »
