Category Archives for Airlines.
Delta doesn’t do a good job keeping secrets about their fleet plans. I told you in advance they were planning to buy Boeing 737 MAXs and they did. Now they’re planning to make another order from Boeing.
Hit by severe weather, American found itself cancelling flights all at once late in the day, and the hotel and limo desk wasn’t sufficiently staffed to handle rooms for cabin crew.
Can an economy passenger come up to business class to join a family member? If a husband and wife split up – he takes the first class seat, and she’s stuck in coach – can they squeeze into the same seat up front, or take turns using it?
Officially, no. But it happens. And one flight attendant allowed it.
Is American Airlines a better airline than we give them credit for? They have made a decade of boneheaded decisions and the customer hasn’t been at the forefront of their thinking. But they’ve also made real improvements, and I don’t think they’re doing enough to tell that story.
Delta Air Lines will pay $8.1 million to settle charges that it misused Covid-era government subsidies.
The goal of any pricing strategy is to grow net revenue. That could mean charging a customer more. But it’s too easy to avoid higher AI fares. The real win is that AI can help airlines offer more low fares to more people without cannibalizing high fare revenue.
When Alyssa Gallagher found herself stranded by American Airlines – and the airline blamed weather – she should have been on her own. She could have slept in the terminal, or come out of pocket for a hotel room. However American itself told her she’d be “eligible for hotel accommodations.”
I don’t love the United-JetBlue deal as a consumer. The American partnership created a third viable competitor to Delta and United in New York. It gave real elite benefits. This does not. However it’s just not an antitrust problem.
28-year United Airlines flight attendant Ruben Sanchez killed time in the jumpseat on a Los Angeles – Cleveland redeye chatting theology with another Catholic crewmember. Pride Month started the next day, and Sanchez remarks that the Church “will never believe men give birth or bless same‑sex marriage.”
The flight attendants union – which represents about 20,000 flight attendants and has long embodied the premise that a customer-facing work group could be unionized and still provide exemplary service – appears to be in the midst of an internal scandal.
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 »
