Category Archives for Airlines.
Last Tuesday Delta CEO Ed Bastian responded to an employee question in an ‘Ask Ed Anything’ video about whether the airline would ever acquire used Boeing 777s.
Delta created a lot of controversy 3 years ago when then-CEO Richard Anderson claimed the airline would buy a used Boeing 777 for $7.7 million. He claimed there was a ‘huge bubble’ in used widebodies and that a 10 year old Boeing 777-200 was worth about $10 million.
Two years ago a black female doctor responded to a medical emergency on a flight and Delta flight attendants rejected the help, not believing she could be a doctor.
Delta said it ‘didn’t reflect their culture’. Delta apologized and assured that they had changed their policies to prevent this from happening again. Except…
Singapore Airlines has announced a fourth US city with non-stop Singapore service: Seattle. That will mean they’ll fly non-stop from Newark, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle — in addition to flying Houston – Manchester, UK – Singapore and New York JFK – Frankfurt – Singapore.
American Airlines has launched its‘elite buy up’ offers. Each year American offers to sell customers status renewal or a higher elite tier for the coming year. The prices are usually outrageous.
The cost to buy back or buy up status has been steadily increasing, while the value of status has been decreasing.
Delta has reportedly submitted a binding offer for Alitalia. They are likely vying against Italy’s state-owned railroad and possibly easyJet.
A drunk baggage handler fell asleep inside the cargo hold of an American Airlines Boeing 737 — and wound up flying on board American’s flight AA363, the 6 a.m. departure from Kansas City to Chicago O’Hare on Saturday.
He “wasn’t discovered until the plane landed at O’Hare International Airport and parked at the gate just before 7:30 a.m. local time.”
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
Last week an American Airlines employee asked CEO Doug Parker what he has sacrificed. First Parker tried to change the subject. Then he acknowledged, “I’ve had a really great life and I’m really happy about it.” And then he went on to explain how he wants to help employees have the same thing.
Perhaps the fact that all of the focus for years on D0 not actually generating strong on time performance has sunk in. Perhaps it’s the poor financial performance with premium customers not booking American.
Hopefully American will align the resources with the operation and put the customer at the center of their thinking in order to run an on-time operation that delivers value to passengers. If American Airlines President Robert Isom re-watches his answer to this question, it could actually happen.
Here’s what it’s like not to have elite status on American Airlines. This is a two hour flight. In order to avoid paying extra for seats on top of their fare, and avoid a middle seat, these passengers are able to book something only in the last two rows of the aircraft.
It taught me something about basic economy — and why it is going to perform worse for American as they make the travel experience worse — and I noticed another big failure during the booking process as well.
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 »
