Category Archives for Airlines.
In November American Airlines rolled out a schedule change — a plan to fly their Boeing 737 MAX to Brazil and to Bolivia swapping out Boeing 757s with lie flat business class for their new, least comfortable domestic aircraft. This was supposed to start in May.
I would love it if it were more possible to follow the facts and not the mob. We don’t yet know where the facts on the Ethiopian Airlines disaster will lead.
American Airlines pilots have come out in support of the 737 MAX. Contrary to the Chinese regulator’s lack of confidence in their pilots flying aircraft manually, they remain confident in their ability to operate the MAX, the performance of their planes has been exemplary, and their planes have a difference that they highlight from other MAX jets that may make them less vulnerable to mistaken Angle of Attack readings.
The Allied Pilots Association (APA), representing the 15,000 pilots of American Airlines, remains confident in the Boeing 737 Max and in our members’ ability to safely fly it.
The pilots for the world’s largest airline have the necessary training and experience to troubleshoot problems and take decisive actions on the flight deck to protect our passengers and crew.
Apparently American Airlines is performing an evacuation test on their Airbus A321neo, which is required before they’re certified to fly it in revenue operations.
There’s controversy over whether today’s more densely packed planes — more seats, closer together, with higher load factors — can be evacuated that quickly under real world conditions, but I’ve argued that misses the point. Evacuation standards need to be so stringent in order to account for the delays that happen when frightened passengers actually leave the aircraft in real world stress.
Regulators are risk-averse. There’s almost nothing for a regulator to gain by not banning something that could be dangerous that turns out not to be. However they’re going to face significant blame if something bad comes to pass and they did nothing.
So it’s not surprising to see country after country ground the Boeing 737 MAX in light of the tragic Ethiopian Airlines incident. The European Union Aviation Safety Agency has now grounded the MAX. However the FAA has not. Outside of Aeromexico North American airlines continue to stand by the aircraft.
For seven years I’ve been saying that inflight internet will eventually be free. Since I started making that prediction JetBlue introduced free inflight internet and Aer Lingus has announced usage-capped free wifi. Southwest, Delta and Alaska now offer free inflight messaging.
My 2012 prediction was that inflight wifi would be free in 10 years (so by 2022). Delta CEO Ed Bastian says they’ll do it in a year or two so by 2021.
American Airlines has 24 Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft in service. Plenty of customers are expressing concern over the aircraft after the Lion Air incident in October was followed by yesterday’s tragic crash of an Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX. China and Indonesia have grounded the jet.
Many airlines operating the plane, including Southwest and American, have expressed support for the aircraft’s safety. And it’s too early to know just what happened in yesterday’s occurrence. We’ll know more soon, especially now that the aircraft’s black boxes are being studied. It’s natural though to have concerns.
Lounge Buddy features airport lounge reviews and also sells single visit lounge passes often at a discount. The last time I spoke with the Lounge Buddy team they were also providing management software to lounges as well.
They’re now being acquired by American Express. As a result we’re promised there will be “additional [unspecified] ways” that American Express will “become an essential part of our…digital lives.”
I find that cleaners getting on the plane while passengers are trying to get off just blocks passengers getting off and as a result their getting on too early may not save time.
Since I wrote about the bottleneck deplaning due to aircraft cleaning, American rolled out a policy that focuses even more heavily on ‘D0’ and sacrifices cleaning. Here’s a notice from Dallas Fort-Worth:
Just as China’s move to ground the MAX conveniently serves political interests (in escalating trade tensions with the U.S.), Indonesia has an interest in blaming the aircraft itself versus their country’s largest privately-run airline for its tragic incident.
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 »
