Category Archives for Airlines.
United Airlines held its earnings call this morning. The airline’s stock price jumped with release of their performance for the second quarter and during the call.
Since earnings beat estimates it was a more upbeat call than many of United’s recent run-ins with the investor community. It also largely focused on how they plan to drive earnings growth despite potential geopolitical and fuel price challenges.
VietJet’s CEO became Southeast Asia’s first self-made female billionaire. The airline is a discount carrier flying narrowbody aircraft mostly domestically although with several routes now into Asia.
They’ve branded themselves the bikini airline. And the airline’s CEO sees the campaigns and onboard stunts as empowering. Vietnam has a very conservative culture, and the public bikini stunts rebel against traditional notions of female dress in that society.
At the beginning of the year we learned that American Airlines rolled out a new software program called iSolve to let flight attendants compensate passengers for onboard inconveniences like “inflight entertainment issues, broken seats or meal shortages.”
Four Delta agents in Seattle were fired and were told it’s because they were giving out upgrades.
When flights are oversold in coach but have empty seats in business class, airlines pick out passengers to give ‘operational upgrades’ to. Some airlines will ;prioritize this based on elite status, but that’s not always the case.
Kimber Bermudez is a first grade teacher based in Chicago. She’s been teaching for just two years. Last Tuesday she flew Southwest Airlines to Florida to visit her parents. She was in seat 14C Her seat opponent struck up a conversation with her, asking what she did for a living.
Passengers around her were listening.
This is going to be a fairly technical post but I’ll do my best to explain it simply. There have been plenty of reader concerns the last few weeks that Cathay Pacific no longer offers business class award space to American AAdvantage or Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan members. It turns out there’s just a trick to find and book the space.
etBlue just ordered 60 Bombardier C-Series jets, now called the Airbus A220, at fire sale prices.
Now JetBlue’s founder, Dave Neeleman, is about to finalize his own order for 60 Airbus A220s to launch his new US airline that’s tentatively named ‘Moxy’.
United is taking a goldilocks approach, announcing a small order for new aircraft: 25 Embraer E-175s to be delivered in 2019 and replace the same number of Bombardier CRJ-700s and 4 Boeing 787-9s that will replace widebodies in 2020.
They continue to scour the market for used aircraft so don’t view this as a shift to a fleet renewal strategy.
News came out this past week that an FAA inspector developed a close relationship with an American Airlines manager, and ignored important safety tips.
The Department of Transportation’s Inspector General found problems at the FAA’s safety oversight at American. Their report found concerns raised by the airline’s pilots union going unaddressed for a year and a half, suggesting that “FAA’s oversight office for American Airlines lacked objectivity in its review and did not respond to concerns about unqualified pilots and unsafe conditions during maintenance verification flights.”
Perhaps most notable to me is that Pakistan International Airlines flies London Heathrow – Lahore non-stop three times a week, flies London – Karachi (and on to Lahore) and offers connections from various cities in Europe — in addition to flying Abu Dhabi – Lahore.
Yet the former Prime Minister of Pakistan chose not to fly PIA for his return to the country, preferring Etihad’s business class instead. No doubt he’s well aware that PIA is the worst airline in the world. If you’re going to get arrested, you want to be well-rested.
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 »
