Category Archives for Airlines.
Around 1 p.m. Eastern this afternoon a United Express flight UA6122 experienced smoke in the cabin while taxiing for departure to Houston. The Mesa-operated Embraer regional jet stopped and crew deploy a slide.
Mesa Airlines appears to be ferrying another ERJ-175 over from Washington Dulles as United flight UA3232 to take passengers on to Houston.
United just launched non-stop Los Angeles – Singapore service at the end of October. They’ve been flying with a Boeing 787-9 using old business class seats.
United will be dropping Los Angeles – Singapore on that route’s one year anniversary, and adding a second San Francisco non-stop.
Last month I asked why people still collect SkyMiles. There has to be some limit to how much programs can devalue their currency.
Truly the only reason I care what Delta charges for awards is because other airline executives think people at Delta are smarter, and blindly copy what Delta does. And because higher Delta pricing may make those executives feel they have headroom in their own award pricing.
At last week’s American Airlines employee town hall one flight attendant asked CEO Doug Parker whether he regrets American’s decision to let airline President Scott Kirby go and elevate Chief Operating Officer Robert Isom to the role of President. Kirby has since gone on to become United’s President.
Four passengers were kicked off of Saturday’s Delta flight DL4527 from Fort Wayne to Atlanta as a result of a flight attendant and passenger arguing over putting a cell phone into airplane mode.
Since the ban on use of electronic devices during taxi and takeoff was lifted, passengers are still supposed to have devices in airplane mode (non-transmitting) once the doors of the aircraft are closed. However this is almost never enforced at all, and certainly not systematically, on the hundreds of flights I take in the U.S.
There was a real buzz tonight at New York JFK. A JetBlue flight, 1623 to Los Angeles, went silent. Media picked this up, and there was little to no information about what was happening. Speculation abounded, fearing the worst.
Prior to the plane going into service, and before American began retrofitting its fleet with this new interior, the airline’s CEO Doug Parker hadn’t even tried the product. And it told me that domestic passenger experience isn’t central to the product the airline believes it is offering.
He now at least says he’s seen the lavatory, though he still hasn’t flown on a plane that has it. He also doesn’t seem to know that his airline has an ongoing effort to reconfigure its existing domestic fleet with more seats and smaller planes, in fact he denies it outright.
Right now there’s great Air France award space for four or more passengers New York – Paris in both directions in February and March. Pretty much every day. And that’s not all.
You’ll note plenty of New York – Amsterdam space. That’s KLM. New York – Madrid is generally Air Europa. There are several Delta flights offering four or more seats as well — such as London, Zurich, Barcelona, Dublin, Frankfurt, and Lisbon.
American Airlines now offers free drinks in Main Cabin Extra seating. First class and Main Cabin Extra also have reserved signs on the overhead bins, though this isn’t something flight attendants are expected to enforce and I watch customers walking to the back of coach storing their backs up front all the time.
Last week at an employee town hall a flight attendant brought up to the carrier’s CEO Doug Parker that they’re having difficulty delivering the free drink benefit to customers in extra legroom seats.
American Airlines hasn’t fully integrated its operations for the amount of beverages they’ll stock on board. American Airlines used to actually stock fewer beverages than US Airways. And they reduced beverage catering in Phoenix down to the old American Airlines levels.
Fortunately that’s being reversed and come “late August” we’ll start seeing more beverages catered in first class across the system.
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 »
