Category Archives for Airlines.
There is something to standing behind the fares that you offer. There’s something to treating consumers at least on equal footing with large corporations. That’s not how airlines usually behave and when they do they deserve admiration and respect. Today that’s Hong Kong Airlines.
Inflight disturbances frequently involve alcohol. Here’s a Love & Hip Hop star being booted from a Delta flight for coming onboard glass of wine in hand last year.
UK airlines want to regulate airport sales of alcohol. Presumably restrictions on when alcohol can be served in airports would limit airline lounge costs, too.
There’s been discussion on reddit and blogs about whether Korean Air could become an American Express Membership Rewards transfer partner.
Here’s what American Express had to say.
I continue to worry that airlines really haven’t learned very much — other than to pay more involuntary denied boarding compensation — from last year’s United Airlines David Dao fiasco. Police remain adjunct airline customer service representatives for dealing with unhappy passengers.
The father of the White House Press Secretary flew American Airlines last night though, on American’s Los Angeles to Nashville redeye. On arrival though passengers weren’t allowed to enter the terminal.
As a regular Delta flyer Huckabee didn’t realize quarantine has been standard procedure for American flights whenever someone in coach bought a barbecue sandwich.
While both Etihad and Jet Airways would retain stakes in the program after a deal with Blackstone it’s not clear the relative shares each party would give up. For Etihad even a partial sale would them out of their worldwide expansion, which they’ve retrenched from after losing their shirts in Alitalia and air berlin. For Jet Airways it would provide them desperately-needed cash.
Reportedly the deal would value the program at $429 – $569 billion, which is 43% – 90% higher than in 2013. At the same time though membership in the program has grown 220% during that period so its value would be lower on a per-member basis.
Last night American Airlines started showing some award space online for Cathay Pacific, Malaysia Airlines, Qatar, and SriLankan. That’s been pulled and is no longer available.
At a meeting between American Airlines employees and airline President Robert Isom last week, a sim instructor asked whether – with higher fuel prices – there’s an ‘industry initiative to increase fares’ to compensate. Isom explains that American is lagging behind on premium revenue.
However he thinks that premium economy will drive higher performance, and that basic economy and segmentation will “offer our customers what they want to buy, trying to encourage that move up the ladder” and that this will fix things.
American appears to have at least partially added the ability to book awards online with four more partners: Cathay Pacific, Qatar, SriLankan, and Malaysia Airlines.
American Airlines is a big operator of Boeing 737s, a workhorse of the domestic fleet. But they’re also a big operator of Airbus narrowbodies, including the larger A321 version. There are 121 Legacy US Airways A321s, and there are 98 legacy American Airlines A321s.
The airline also has 100 A321 ‘neo’ or ‘new engine option’ planes on order. And at an employee forum last week American’s management shared their plans for these A321neos, as well as plans to update the interiors of existing A321 aircraft in the fleet.
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 »
