Category Archives for Airlines.
As airports across the Middle East shut down because of the Iran war, Gulf Air is doing something few national carriers ever have to do: moving planes and passengers to another airport and continuing service from there. It sounds extraordinary, but history offers several examples of airlines that lost their home base to war and kept flying from somewhere else — sometimes in another country, sometimes from a different region of the world.
A Discover-optimized lede for this would be: American Airlines flight attendants are being told to wear the red pins again — the same symbols used during the union’s strike-threat campaign — even though they already won a new contract and the union still is not clearly saying what, exactly, it wants now.
Leaked United internal slides make the airline look like it has already won — with stronger hubs, a more premium fleet, and years of growth under Scott Kirby. The progress is real, but the deck repeatedly uses the most flattering baseline to make the turnaround look bigger, while leaving out context that matters.
A Frontier passenger headed from Las Vegas to Chicago was removed after an overhead bin dispute escalated into a confrontation with flight attendants at the door. In the video he argues “get out of my way” isn’t a threat, then starts posturing about what a “real” threat is and daring the crew as he’s ultimately forced off the aircraft.
A White House deputy chief of staff tweeted a complaint about American Airlines, and it instantly turned into something bigger than one bad trip: a cue for other Trump-world figures to echo, quote-tweet, and pile on. The airline may even deserve the criticism in a given case, but the complaints have become a public signal of proximity, alignment, and tribe membership, not just customer service feedback.
American’s Heathrow catering meltdown forced the airline into bare-minimum meals flown in from the U.S., but the pendulum may be swinging back fast in premium cabins. DO & CO is stepping in on London routes—an upgrade that could leave American’s long-haul meal service meaningfully better than what passengers were getting before the blowup.
United didn’t just cut MileagePlus flight earnings by as much as 40% for customers without a co-branded credit card — it’s now spending ad dollars to underline the message that cardholders matter more. The new ad makes the “no card, fewer miles” reality explicit, even though a huge share of United’s most valuable customers can’t or won’t get a Chase-issued card.
United spent the Biden years leaning hard into the corporate-left script — pronouns, DEI signaling, and even vaccine mandates — and now Scott Kirby is adopting the Trump-era posture with public defenses of tariffs and other priorities that track the new power center. The pivot is so obvious that the MAGA right is calling him a hypocrite, and the receipts they are circulating say more about modern corporate governance than about any one airline CEO.
Internal APFA meeting notes say the number of American flight attendants who couldn’t get hotel rooms during January’s Storm Fern “far exceeded” the 200 reported in a prior disruption, after the airline’s hotel-booking and crew-recovery processes failed. Instead of demanding make-goods, the minutes describe management as frustrated and “unable to help,” even as crews were left stranded in airports.
Rove just added SAS EuroBonus as a 1:1 transfer partner along with live award availability searches built into the platform. They’re also running a 20% transfer bonus through April 8.
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 »
