Category Archives for Airlines.
Last night Ryanair flight 7312 from Dublin to Zadar, Croatia diverted to Frankfurt Hahn airport in Germany after it lost cabin pressure.
The Boeing 737-800 had 189 people on board and was flying at 37,000 feet 120 miles southwest of Hahn airport at the time of the incident. Passengers reported hearing a bang. The flight crew deployed passenger oxygen masks and made an emergency descent all the way down to 8000 feet.
American has relaxed a rule that is causing more award space to show up. Traditionally a connection on a domestic award ticket had to be under 4 hours, with longer connections ‘breaking the fare’ and causing an itinerary to price as two awards.
Now connections of up to 18 hours are permitted on domestic awards.
Years ago it was common to be able to request a credit when you bought a ticket, and the fare for the same flights dropped. Airlines used this to give you confidence buying and not waiting. You could lock in a price, protecting yourself against price increases, while not worrying that you might be overpaying.
Of course most people didn’t claim any money back. Most people buy a ticket and don’t check the price again later. Services popped up to automate this, and airlines because less customer-friendly. However several airlines are still fairly flexible giving you credits back.
Delta President Glen Hauenstein said in the introduction to the airline’s second quarter earnings call yesterday, “We continue to roll out more options that our customers are asking for, including the ability to paying with miles by the end of 2018.”
He didn’t elaborate on what exactly Delta plans to allow customers to pay for in his remarks. However later in the call CEO Ed Bastian explained.
I’ve held off writing about the Air China flight which lost cabin pressure and quickly descended 21,000 feet because there were missing pieces to the story that just didn’t make sense. The incident was being blamed on a pilot smoking in the cockpit.
While it’s understandable that a pilot doing so wouldn’t want to be outed out of fear for their job, it was not clear how the smoking was in any way related to the incident. Until now, that is.
During yesterday’s second quarter earnings call, Duane Pfennigwerth of Evercore ISI asked whether the way “the rest of the industry has implemented basic economy so far… the more punitive implementations of it, no carry-on” has led to “positive share gain” (people choosing to fly Delta instead of United and American).
Last week I wrote about the 10 highest revenue airline routes in the world. British Airways New York JFK – London Heathrow exceeds a billion dollars a year.
Here are the top 10 revenue routes from Dallas Fort-Worth (all airlines) using OAG data, a fascinating mix.
Award availability on American Airlines can be tough. I love my AAdvantage miles, mostly for booking travel on partners rather than on American. They’ve made coach award space better over the last 8 months or so, but premium cabin international award space can still be tough to get.
That’s why it’s notable when awards become booking on American flights, whether you’re using American AAdvantage miles or partner airline miles. And right now awards on South America flights in business class for spring are especially bookable.
Singapore Airlines has loaded their new Los Angeles – Singapore non-stop into the schedule. It’s bookable, and business class awards are wide open with 2 seats available on most flights in both directions. Hurry because that won’t last.
There’s been a lot of speculation about what Singapore Airlines would do with its extra Airbus A350ULR (ultra long range) capacity beyond a daily Newark and Los Angeles flight. And the answer is additional Los Angeles flying and additional San Francisco flying. San Francisco will not only have 2 United non-stops to Singapore and a Singapore Airlines non-stop to Singapore, they’ll have a second non-daily Singapore Airlines flight 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 »
