Category Archives for Airlines.
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.
Yesterday American Airlines sent end of year review emails. I wrote about how few miles I earned from flying 100,000 miles and how scarce complimentary upgrades have become for someone like me. The airline encouraged members to share their activity via social media, embedding links to do so.
Members who took them up on this also posted their frequent flyer number and e-mail address. Oops. American is now telling members they need to delete those posts and monitor their accounts in case all their miles are stolen.
A report from Denmark’s Danske Bank says that Norwegian Air, the largest of the transatlantic discounters, could breach conditions of its debt if it doesn’t raise fresh capital by the end of the year.
Low cost transatlantic competitors Wow Air is teetering, and Primera has gone out of business. Norwegian operates both long haul and within Europe and is struggling through the most challenging time of year for a carrier in this hemisphere. How that will change the airline going forward remains to be seen.
Ken Wimberly, who describes himself as Chief Visionary Officer for a commercial real estate firm in the Dallas area, says he’ll never fly American Airlines again.
He usually flies Southwest. He wanted first class tickets for his family of five, so he bought them from American. Then he needed to change the travel date for one member of the family.
American Airlines just sent me a ‘year in review’ and it tells me everything I need to know about the value of Executive Platinum status. I’ve just requalified with a flight where I sat in the last row of coach, and it’s time to ponder the value I get out of my elite relationship going forward.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. With Republicans in control of the US House of Representatives they had Bill Shuster (R-Airlines for America) to do their bidding. He was dating a top lobbyist from the airline industry. His Chief of Staff was married to another top airline industry lobbyist. And he hired an airline industry lobbyist to run the Transportation Committee.
Now with Democrats regaining control of the House Pete DeFazio of Oregon isn’t missing a beat.
It’s often a good idea to book Delta awards to Europe as roundtrip anyway because if you book two one way tickets then the one originating in Europe will incur fuel surcharges. Delta imposes those on members because they can and because many European programs do, so why be better than their European competitors for award travel which starts on the continent?
There’s another reason to at least search roundtrip and not just one way: Delta may charge fewer miles, too.
A handful of dates in February and plenty of dates in March – still peak season – have the American Airlines non-stop flights between Los Angeles and Auckland, New Zealand pricing from $420 roundtrip.
This is an excellent opportunity to visit New Zealand at a bargain fare provided you’re amenable to making the journey in economy.
Lion Air flight JT610 from Jakarta to Pangkal Pinang crashed 13 minutes after takeoff on October 29. 189 passengers and crew were killed in the disaster.
The aircraft’s flight data recorder was recovered last month, and provided useful information to allow for a preliminary report. The cockpit voice recorder has not yet been recovered. Unfortunately investigation of the Lion Air Boeing 737 MAX crash is stalled.
Two months ago Qatar Airways threatened to leave the oneworld alliance, a threat that their CEO Akbar al-Baker has repeated several times.
Qatar’s CEO did not attend the alliance’s annual meeting in New York where their existing partner Royal Air Maroc announced its pending entry into oneworld. Any exit would logically have been announced at that meeting, though Qatar has mentioned a Christmas deadline for a decision.
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 »
