Category Archives for Airlines.
Earlier in the month I wrote about $63 fares to Europe. That’s not a sustainable business model, it works for a few seats and for a short period of time. But what happens when you’re not even filling your planes at low low prices?
The Star Alliance member airline faces a challenge selling flights to Americans, he says, because we all think New Zealand is 40 hours away by air. According to Luxon “geography’s not the strong suit for the average American.”
In 2012 I wrote that once bandwidth increases substantially for inflight internet, it would eventually become free (included in ticket price). I predicted that would happen within 10 years.
Now JetBlue offers it for free. Aer Lingus announced they’ll be offering it for free. Southwest, Delta, and Alaska offer free messaging. And the trend is going to spread because it is a profit maximizing strategy once bandwidth no longer needs to be rationed.
This is an option for linked customers, not for everyone. The corporate rate box does not show up without being logged in, and it does not show up for me when I log in.
When American Airlines rolled out ‘basic economy’ fares last year one of the less-publicized restrictions was that if a flight cancelled or was delayed they wouldn’t put these passengers on another airline.
Now at American regular economy fares are the new basic economy because coach passengers without elite status will no longer be placed on other airlines in the event of irregular operations. If American’s operation has problems, you wait, just like if you were flying Spirit.
I find that booking six months out gives great options for award redemption. Booking towards the ‘end of the schedule’ around 11 months out is even better if you want to redeem for four or more seats. Right now there’s a great example of the theory from several of Cathay Pacific’s U.S. gateways.
Searching for two passengers is much easier of course but the ability to redeem a top flight business class product for four or more passengers is worth noting when availability is this good.
In June American Airlines told employees to expect layoffs among management at the director level and above.
American Airlines released new uniforms in fall 2016 and almost immediately started getting complaints from flight attendants. While they were coming from a small percentage of crew members overall, those reports included difficulty breathing and skin reactions. There were hundreds of reports of reactions even from crew members just being around others wearing the new uniform.
A company whose business strategy is focused on making employees happy again needed to make a change.
United is making elite status harder to get, especially top tier elite status. They’re changing the upgrades top elites earn when they keep flying United beyond what it takes to earn their status.
Customers who continue to earn 1K (100,000 mile flyer status) under more stringent rules will have fewer people to compete with for upgrades, those who drop down a status level will hate these changes.
A woman flying United from Sydney to San Francisco on Monday was told by a flight attendant that the allowable standard for babies crying on the airline’s planes is five minutes.
She was also given plenty of parenting advice from a flight attendant who clearly suggested she didn’t know what she was doing with her child.
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 »
