Category Archives for Airlines.
David Dao getting dragged off of a United Express flight was a worldwide moment. It focused attention on involuntary denied boardings. It generated outrage. And United, Delta and American all looked closely at their approach. United’s stock recovered quickly, passenger numbers held, and the airline continued to grow. Two years later United suffers no drag at all from David Dao, but it’s the industry that has shifted.
Back on October 16 a man flying Southwest from Los Angeles to Dallas claimed to be flirting, playing footsie with his seat opponent, and even argued that she had come on to him. She asked for a new seat though, and he got up and followed appearing to keep up his romantic pursuit.
The man, who was released on parole days before the flight, had overdosed on heroin three days prior to travel and used used methamphetamine just the day before.
Hotels encourage you to fly out for a stay while they replace single use plastic toiletries with bulk wall mounted shampoo, and offer to let you skip housekeeping, telling you these cost saving measures are out of their concern “for the environment.”
The Dutch government wants to ban flights between Brussels and Amsterdam for the environment since apparently it’s more environmentally friendly to connect at Heathrow or Frankfurt.
Ponder whether you should fly at all, while you continue to have kids and eat meat…
It’s been widely reported that United’s Glasgow – Newark flight had to be cancelled on Saturday morning when two pilots showed up to work intoxicated.
However United’s efforts to inconvenience passengers weren’t limited to two intoxicated pilots, they continued to inconvenience passengers through the decisions they made recovering from the incident as well.
As a result of bad weather Wednesday’s Tel Aviv – Newark flight diverted to Cleveland, which is no longer a United hub.
Uzbekistan Airways now has Boeing 787-8s and those have 4.7 tons greater cargo capacity than 767s. They may not be able to carry a full cargo payload when full and servicing long flights, that shouldn’t be an issue for Tashkent – London for instance. It makes sense for the carrier to consolidate operations.
However given Amazon’s penchant for growing its cargo fleet I wonder if listing the planes on Amazon Marketplace might turn out to be a more effective platform.
British Airways settled a class action lawsuit over fuel surcharges. See, these fees had nothing to do with the price of fuel (as required by the Department of Transportation). They awarded cash or miles to a whole bunch of frequent flyers, but continued charging the fees — they just stopped calling them fuel surcharges, and started calling them surcharges. In other words, extra fees that no longer even pretend to have a purpose.
While fuel surcharges aren’t a government tax, they are a tax on frequent flyers, a fee for using miles for free travel (ironic, huh?).
Since Glasgow, Scotland is part of the UK and Brexit hasn’t happened yet, this flight delay should be covered by Regulation 261/2004 entitling passengers to significant cash compensation. Given the distance and that passengers won’t reach their destination within four hours of schedule, they’re clearly entitled to 600 euros cash each (US$677).
We’ve already been seeing discounted restricted coach awards starting at 5000 miles, and summer business class ‘specials’ (lower priced standard awards to Europe).
We’re now seeing award availability convegring around a penny per point.
Delta complains that Qatar Airways owns 49% of Air Italy and so Italy’s number two carrier is really a stalking horse for the Doha-based airline. Meanwhile Delta owns 49% of Virgin Atlantic, and most of the rest of Virgin is owned by Delta’s partners. Delta is also a huge fan of subsidies but only when the subsidies are going to them.
So is it any surprise that Virgin Atlantic is ceasing its three to four times weekly London Gatwick – St. Lucia flights June 8, 2020 because the island wouldn’t pay Virgin $2.5 million in subsidies?
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 »
