Airlines

Category Archives for Airlines.

Airline Sues Customers Who Don’t Take All the Flights They Book

by Gary Leff

airplane
Feb 09 2019

Airlines have fought against ‘throwaway ticketing’ for years. A ticket on United Airlines to Chicago might be super expensive, but connecting through Chicago to Milwaukee may be cheap. So passengers might buy a ticket to Milwaukee and just get off in Chicago and not board their final connection.

This past fall though we learned that United Airlines was threatening passengers with sending them to collections for the fare the carrier believes that they lost. They’re threatening to trash their customers’ credit report with a dubious debt, since the passenger never agreed to pay a different fare in the first place.

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Southwest Looking For New Services They Can Charge Extra For

by Gary Leff

airline cabin
Feb 09 2019

Southwest Airlines doesn’t charge checked bag fees or change fees, and they’ve been profitable 46 years in a row. They don’t offer assigned seats, but generate $400 million a year in early boarding charges which let customers have a better shot at the seats they want. That’s an improvement for those customers compared to the airline’s base product.

While they continue to eschew bag and change fees, there’s talk of adding extras that they could charge… extra for.

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United “Re-Banks” Its Denver Hub Next Week. What Does That Mean for Travelers?

by Gary Leff

united plane docked
Feb 08 2019

Banked hubs are costly to an airline, there’s a lot of activity, a lot of downtime, and they wind up paying people to stand around. But they’re attractive for selling tickets — shorter connecting times mean flights filter up to the top of search. Customers want to get where they’re going quickly. The problem is during irregular operations — bad weather can delay flight departures, then there are no gates for arriving flights, and challenges connecting cascade.

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Secret Dinner Plotted the End of KLM’s Days as an Independent Airline

by Gary Leff

klm planes
Feb 08 2019

Air France was partially privatized in 1999. As part of its acquisition of KLM in 2004, the French government’s stake in the combined carrier was reduced from 54.4% to 44%. The deal made the group the world’s largest airline by revenue.

The acquisition of a flag carrier was controversial, and not only did it require the French government giving up majority control but commitments were also made regarding KLM’s independence. To this day KLM has its own CEO, the independence of whom group CEO Ben Smith apparently bristles at.

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Will American Airlines Drop New York – London in 2022 as BA Moves Into JFK Terminal 8?

by Gary Leff

outside airport
Feb 08 2019

British Airways and American announced today that BA would move to American’s terminal 8 in 2022. That’s not really news, since New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said this was part of the plan back in October. However we do get new details including a bus gate for the terminal. That’s miserable.

Some are surprised by BA’s willingness to walk away from that investment, but $65 million is peanuts amortized over four years in the context of the $1 billion annually they generate on the New York – London route.

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American Airlines Cancels Transatlantic Flight Due to Drunk Pilot, Everyone Entitled to Over $500 Apiece

by Gary Leff

pilot cockpit
Feb 07 2019

Confronted with proof that American Airlines does, in fact, offer predeparture beverages up front a spokesperson says “Safety is our highest priority and we apologise to our customers for the disruption to their travel plans, we have rebooked them on alternative flights.”

I asked what was being done for customers and was told that everyone on the flight is being offered 15,000 miles. Of course that is separate from the compensation that passengers are entitled to under EU Regulation 261/2004.

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American Gets to Keep Its Authority to Fly to China — Without Actually Flying to China

by Gary Leff

china memorial
Feb 07 2019

There’s no Open Skies agreement between the U.S. and China. Instead a bilateral agreement lays out what route authorities can be doled out by respective governments. American Airlines dropped Chicago – Beijing and Chicago – Shanghai and Hawaiian Airlines dropped Honolulu – Beijing. American would like to keep their route authority from Chicago to China even while not using it. That would mean preventing any other U.S. airlines from adding China frequencies, which benefits American by avoiding competition for its Dallas and Los Angeles to Beijing and Shanghai service. So they asked the Department of Transportation to grant a ‘dormancy’ of their authority to keep the routes for a year without flying them. Normally they would lose the routes after 90 days. The odds that they’ll return to flying from Chicago to China are really,…

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Delta Apologizes For Creepy Inflight Napkins

by Gary Leff

Feb 06 2019

Delta serves Coke products because Atlanta, and their napkins advertise Coke products because money. Ads try to be clever to get your attention so they aren’t ignored, in order to get better value for that money.

However the napkins Delta was boarding last month didn’t go over well. They encouraged passengers to give fellow travelers unsolicited phone numbers in hopes of… well, you know what it’s in hopes of.

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