Category Archives for Airlines.
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.
American Airlines executives meet with employees for question and answer sessions called Crew News. This past week an American pilot asked CEO Doug Parker about technology to connect cabin crew with all the functions of the airline to fix problems like Delta flight attendants have.
Delta flight attendants have a new update tot heir device so that they can connect and chat with ramp tower, catering, cockpit, crew schedules, passenger service and other teams. They can directly get problems addressed.
Back in December Delta introduced the ability to upgrade with miles any time — from purchase leading up to travel. Your miles are worth only about a penny apiece and they charge you the difference in fare between what you bought and the price of the more premium option.
At the time, and leading up to when this was launched, I suggested that this could replace traditional mileage awards — where there are capacity controls, the airline makes seats available for upgrade they don’t expect to sell, and you pay a fixed (discounted) mileage price for those seats.
US airline trade group Airlines 4 American confirms that it has “approved a new international standard that will allow for ‘unspecified’ and ‘undisclosed’ in addition to ‘male’ or ‘female.’”
Effective June 1, 2019 this accommodates passengers who have an ‘X’ on their IDs for gender. This is currently an option for state IDs from Arkansas, California, Colorado, Minnesota, Oregon and Washington, D.C.
French Polynesia is one of the toughest awards to book, because service is limited. There aren’t a lot of options for getting there, even if you’re willing to connect. The major carrier is Air Tahiti Nui, which serves Los Angeles – Papeete. Air France also operates that route three times a week. United flies three days a week from San Francisco and has good award space in coach. Hawaiian flies Saturday service from Honolulu.
Whether or not business class awards are possible is a yes/no proposition (usually no). There’s not a lot of tricks to make it happen. Although right now Air Tahiti Nui which is an American Airlines and Delta partner is making great business class award space available for two passengers between Los Angeles and Papeete, Tahiti for October through December.
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 I covered attempts by new Air France KLM CEO Ben Smith to unify the two carriers and end KLM’s independence.
However KLM has been making money. Air France has not been. And the voting rights over KLM are not even majority held by Air France KLM…
United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz took the stage at Gotham Hall in New York nearly 3 years ago. He was new on the job and looking to make a splash advancing the narrative that his airline was turning itself around, righting the ship.
It always seemed clear that United wouldn’t sustain their new inflight offering. Although in some ways I expected that there would be more progress actually rolling out the seats before it was cut back so far.
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.
As a passenger the Airbus A380 is a special experience. Takeoff rolls are incredibly smooth. While they can pack in passengers densely most operators have offered incredibly luxurious perks on the plane — in part because it can be so much more difficult to fill an aircraft with 600 or more passengers so the cost to use space ‘inefficiently’ is low. No US airline has operated one.
The Airbus board is meeting and – barring a last minute rabbit out of a hat – could announce the end of A380 production as soon as tomorrow. Airbus has been signaling the possible end of the A380 program since 2014.
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 »
