Category Archives for Airlines.
United Airlines President Scott Kirby, who has previously served as President of American Airlines (and US Airways and America West before that), is the most ‘by the numbers’ executive in the airline industry today. I’ve called him a destroyer of airlines.
However he’s just given an interview where he actually says that brand matters to an airline’s success in the long run and so more than what’s in the spreadsheet matters. Does the new rhetoric match reality?
American Airlines CEO Doug Parker has finally flown the airline’s new standard coach product, a full nine months after it has entered service.
American debuted a new domestic interior on their first Boeing 737 MAX back in November. That isn’t just the new product that is going on one plane (of which they have 100 on order). They’re taking all of their existing Boeing 737s and replacing the interior with new seats with less distance from seat back to seat back, that have less padding, and no seat back video.
American offered compensation so that the rebooking would be listed as voluntary rather than involuntary, not because DOT requirements were at play here at all.
The passenger agreed to give up their seat for compensation and American agreed to book the passenger onto the next available flight. Due to a delay the next available flight happened to be the original one.
Yesterday I helped someone with an Air China first class award. Air China certainly doesn’t have the best first class, and you might think it’s not worth the miles.
This is the story of an award booking that appeared to fail, but where perseverance got it ticketed. However there’s a better approach that takes some of the risk out of award booking.
There’s a long history of sexualizing flight attendants. It remains a part of the culture in the U.S. but isn’t nearly as overt as it once was. In part that’s because travel is no longer nearly as glamorous, and airlines in the U.S. rarely promote the glamour of most of their travel experience (and when they do it now focuses on product). U.S. culture would no longer be as welcoming of this as it once was either.
American Airlines does not allow pets to be checked as cargo on their Airbus narrowbodies. They are growing this fleet with A321neos that begin delivering at the start of 2019.
Airlines are cracking down on emotional support animals. Small pets can travel in the cabin for a fee, but larger pets need to be checked. Owners of larger animals then may be caught between Scylla and Charybdis unable to bring their animal on board as an emotional support animal, unable to bring them in cabin for a fee, and unable to check them when traveling on half the domestic fleet — and many destinations are served exclusively by these aircraft.
Flight attendants may be given detail on an airline’s food. They rarely pay it much mind, and I usually get blank stares and shrugs when I ask something about a dish before I order it. So I’ve learned not to ask.
Not only did I get a description of the dishes I could choose from, I didn’t have to ask the flight attendant what the wines were. If I ask I usually get another blank stare, “red and white” or sometimes if I’m lucky they will show me the bottle.
When I first started writing about American’s 737 MAX and the miniature lavatory, the airline kept asking why don’t I give Southwest the same hard time?
A really great burger starts with quality beef. It should have processed cheese that melts well. And it should be inside of a potato bun.
Don’t give me ciabatta bread for a bun. Don’t give me a kaiser roll. As good as brioche can be, it’s not well-matched to a burger. The bun is a delivery vehicle for the burger. It needs to be big enough to contain the burger, but shouldn’t be so large that it overwhelms the burger.
Everything you put on the burger needs to fit inside of the bun. You don’t want the burger to fall apart when you eat it.
It’s still possible to get value out of the SkyMiles program and it’s worth highlighting when you’re able to get saver business class award space using those miles.
The bizarre thing is that the price of even saver space varies widely on Delta, although sometimes that rebounds to your benefit. Virgin Atlantic saver award space is cheaper than Delta saver award space, and both are available for four or more passengers in business class.
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 »
