Category Archives for Airlines.
Citibank hosts an only invitation-only community of American AAdvantage co-brand cardholders. They provide incentives like gift cards for participation. And they’ve just sent out another round of invitations.
There are a few aviation photos that are considered trophies. Photo sitting inside an engine?
Check. Photo sitting in the cockpit? Check.
On Monday a Southwest Airlines flight attendant greeted passengers boarding a Nashville – Atlanta flight from inside an overhead bin.
The meeting lasted an hour, during which “there was a lot of yelling.” I think my favorite part has to be that “the president ribbed American Airlines CEO Doug Parker over his company’s flagging stock price, asking why it’s so low at a time when the stock market is surging.”
In the end American, Delta, and United were told by the President to follow the legal process they’ve so far in their 4 year saga been unwilling to follow, knowing that their case would fail on the merits at the Department of Transportation.
Last August Delta announced they had seat back video installed in 600 aircraft. That’s significant because American has been looking to ultimately remove seat back screens from domestic planes and United, led by American’s former President, has a similar vision.
Now Delta has announced they’ve hit 700 planes with seat back video.
While there’s certainly been consolidation in the airline industry as America West acquired US Airways and then American; Delta acquired Northwest; Continental acquired United; Southwest acquired AirTran and Alaska Airlines acquired Virgin America this hasn’t led to higher prices for consumers. Government should remove barriers to competition, but it’s a stretch to suggest that the several large airlines in today’s industry constitute anything close to monopoly.
American Airlines produced a report for employees on the carrier’s progress towards its 2019 goals. One item that stood out – apart from the airline’s operational problems this year – is that customer “likelihood to recommend” scores have fallen.
The airline attributes this to its reliability challenges, although it’s equally notable that American compares themselves to just before they began retrofitting domestic aircraft to a new less comfortable standard.
When Oscar Munoz took over from disgraced United Airlines CEO Jeff Smisek the airline rolled out modest customer experience improvements as part of an overall attempt to change the narrative of the airline.
Illy coffee and Stroopwafels turned out to be a perfect match, made better together. And for the Stroopwafel it changed their entire business trajectory.
American Airlines is expected to eliminate the “close in booking fee” on awards, the $75 per ticket charge for booking award travel within 21 days of departure (which is currently waived for AAdvantage elite frequent flyers using miles from their own account).
For program members as a whole eliminating close-in booking fees will be a good thing though the underlying program changes that lead the fee to no longer make sense are a negative overall.
It’s always a good idea to understand and verify the taxes and surcharges that a frequent flyer program is trying to charge you when redeeming your miles. I’ve caught several overcharges from American Airlines over the years, for instance.
Southwest, American, and United have all announced that they’re cancelling Boeing 737 MAX flights into early November although the truth is they don’t know when it will fly again. Each previous cancellation has been followed by another one.
Except… while United announced that they were pulling the 737 MAX from their schedule, they apparently forgot to actually do it.
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 »
