Category Archives for Airlines.
The message of the CFO at United is that you can’t reduce everything to a variable in a spread. You have to make investments that seem to make sense in order to differentiate the product and drive consumer loyalty in order to attract a revenue premium as well as co-brand credit card spending.
Delta CEO Ed Bastian defended the experience of the pilots at their regional carrier and says “there is one level of safety” at Delta. Is that accurate?
Customers used to get frustrated, knowing where their bags were but running into a brick wall with their airline trying to get that information used. That’s changed, with airlines jumping on the bandwagon of adopting new technology deployed by Apple that lets them take in tracking data and use it to recover bags.
The Southwest Airlines activist investor looking to load up Southwest’s balance sheet with debt, turn the airline into a clone of underperformers American Airlines and JetBlue, and shed staff, is expected to increase its ownership in the carrier. In addition, more of the airline’s leadership is being pushed out.
The “heart” of Southwest Airlines died today, with the company’s first layoffs in corporate history.
They did these via videochat, not in person, banning everyone from headquarters. And the messaging isn’t “we’re in an existential fight for our lives” it’s “we’re not optimizing financial performance.”
This is a pretty good offer for Southwest and for customers. They’ll give you a free companion to travel with you for about two months if you book just two one way flights right away (and use them for travel in the next six weeks).
Bilt Rewards Vice President Richard Kerr wrote up an in-depth explanation of travel portals. Bilt uses Expedia for members who want to redeem their points at 1.25 cents apiece towards paid travel, whether it’s hotel or airfare or other bookings.
American Express, Chase, Citi, and others have travel portals and it’s common to use a third-party ‘white label’ service like this.
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
A passenger is speaking out about their experience on Monday’s Delta Air Lines flight 4819 disaster. They were on board the Minneapolis to Toronto flight that crashed at the airport. The regional jet, operated by the airline’s wholly-owned regional carrier Endeavor, wound up upside down, with its wings sheared off. Everyone made it off the aircraft, though some of the passengers were injured including critically.
A flight attendant helps push passengers through the plane’s emergency exit, while people outside assist passengers getting off the aircraft. The flight attendant instructs passengers not to take anything with them, since that would impede the quick exit from the aircraft: “drop 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 »
