Airlines

Category Archives for Airlines.

What Do Airline Two Letter Codes Stand For?

by Gary Leff

ANA plane
May 04 2019

I recently shared the strange story of how Baltimore’s Friendship Airport (“BAL”) became BWI even though that code was already taken by Bewani, Papua New Guinea.

A lot of aviation codes have unique histories. Southwest Airlines couldn’t have SW — that belonged to Seaborn World at the time (it’s now Air Namibia). So they took WN which approximates Western and ultimately works nicely because it can be said to stand for We’re Nuts! Although sadly Southwest no longer serves peanuts.

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It’s Possible to Have a Fantastic Meal on a Domestic Flight! (Just Fly Alaska Airlines)

by Gary Leff

airplane food
May 03 2019

I’d have been happy to have this meal for dinner at home, constraints of an aircraft galley aside. I cannot remember the last time I said that about a meal on a domestic flight.

It’s a shame that Alaska is scaling back on the quality of its first class hard product as it standardizes its fleet after the the Virgin America merger. However on board catering they’re doing right — more so than my experiences in the past year with American, United, and Delta.

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Korean Air’s ‘Nut Rage’ Vice President in New Legal Hot Water

by Gary Leff

flight attendants in airport
May 03 2019

Cho Hyun-ah, Korean Air’s Vice President for inflight services and daughter of the airline’s Chairman, flew New York JFK – Seoul four years ago and had an altercation with a crew member. She was flying first class, and a flight attendant presented her with an unopened bag of macadamia nuts, rather than serving them on a plate.

Ms. Cho scolded the flight attendant, and dressed down the purser. She apparently hit the flight attendant. She ordered the purser off the plane. The aircraft, then 56 feet toward the runway at this point, returned to the gate to offload the purser. The incident delayed departure by 20 minutes. And the world went ‘nuts’. Now she’s back in court on new charges.

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Does Southwest Give Lower Boarding Priority to Customers They Know Will Pay Up?

by Gary Leff

airplane cabin
May 03 2019

Southwest Airlines doesn’t pre-assign seats. Instead it’s “first come, first served” so how early you board the aircraft determines what’s available for you to pick from.

A reader who found themselves with boarding order C11 asked how this is possible — and wondered if they stumbled onto Southwest giving this to them because they’re likely to ‘buy up’ at the gate to A1 – 15 boarding.

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American Makes Etihad Awards Bookable Online. Will It Last?

by Gary Leff

first class cabin
May 03 2019

One of my most frequent and best uses of American AAdvantage miles over the past 7 years has been booking first class awards on Etihad. I’ve used them to fly to the Maldives four times, to India, to the Gulf region and from the Mideast to Australia to name just a few.

Etihad awards have just become bookable on the American Airlines website. There’s no need to search the space on Etihad’s site if you’re using American Airlines miles, or call to book. That’s brand new.

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American Airlines is Field Testing New Uniforms

by Gary Leff

flow chart
May 02 2019

American Airlines rolled out new uniforms but was met with employee complaints about toxicity and physical effects. Testing couldn’t confirm this, but complaints mounted.

It’s something that’s happened at other airlines before, with large numbers of employees some have reactions to what they’re assigned to wear. However the number of complaints were large, and so American first offered alternatives for employees who believed they were having medical issues with their uniforms, and then began another redesign.

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Delta Now Charging More Than Half a Roundtrip for Many One-Way International Awards

by Gary Leff

delta plane
May 02 2019

Ever since removing their award charts from public view, Delta has seemed to go out of their way to find more and more ways to stick it to their SkyMiles members like imposing basic economy restrictions on the least expensive awards and eliminating high value upgrade awards.

Now they have a new trick to charge you more miles — and since they don’t tell you how their pricing works you might never even know it and wind up spending more miles than you have to for the same itinerary! Delta now charges more than 50% the roundtrip cost of an award for many international redemptions.

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American Airlines Plans Three Key Inflight Improvements

by Gary Leff

airplane seats
May 01 2019

American Airlines is planning to make three changes that involve listening to customers, revisiting past decisions, and fixing pain points. That’s great news.

The plan is to make changes to their new domestic first class seat to offer greater comfort and more underseat storage. They’re going to improve their international wifi, moving towards the quality improvements they’ve made domestically. And they’re going to install working dividers between center seats in business class to provide passenger privacy.

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American Airlines Now Lets You Volunteer for Bump Compensation Electronically

by Gary Leff

switch flights flyer
May 01 2019

Airlines are going to new great lengths to avoid involuntarily denying boarding to passengers — selling more tickets than there are seats and then not having enough volunteers to take a later flight for compensation when more passengers than expected show up. Some airlines are overbooking less. Others are paying out more compensation to get more passengers to volunteer to give up their seats.

We’ve seen stories about Delta giving a passenger $4000 in travel vouchers for agreeing to take a later flight and United giving out $10,000. American’s Day of Departure Desk will also authorize substantially more compensation than before.

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