Category Archives for Airlines.
As governors around the country flirt with the idea of luring Delta’s headquarters out of Georgia now that lawmakers there are refusing to give them fuel tax subsidies they’ve lobbied for — and some are even offering to back the truck up as it were (Connecticut’s governor says they “are committed to doing whatever necessary to help make this relocation a reality.”) — consider that Delta doesn’t just devalue SkyMiles they renege on deals with governors, too.
In this week’s “Tell Me Why” podcast for American Airlines employees, airline CFO Derek Kerr explains why they do not hedge fuel.
I offer a slightly different formulation of Kerr’s answer and it evinces surprising humility and self awareness.
The flight attendant who runs the ‘Flight Service Official’ Facebook page made up of American Airlines employees says the group’s number one question is whether they’ll “ever see profit sharing numbers competitive with other airlines like Delta and Southwest.”
American should offer to match Delta on pay and profit sharing on equal terms with Delta. American’s unions will never agree to this of course. They want a less efficient work force that makes more.
At an American Airlines Crew News Q&A session between employees and management one flight attendant raised the problem that customers don’t know how to access the inflight video American is providing, “Our customers are having a problem finding the landing page for our inflight internet… they’re having a hard time finding the videos. I probably get 5, 6 people asking on a flight.”
American its transatlantic joint venture partners announced that they are rolling out Basic Economy fares across the Pond, following the lead of Delta and its partners.
File this under completely expected, but another degradation in the travel experience that offers less value to customers at the same price.
Last year a French woman flew United to San Francisco when her boarding pass was for a flight to Paris. United said ‘oops’.
Now a partially blind 80 year old United passenger accidentally flew to Denver instead of Raleigh this week.
American Airlines is pissed that Chicago O’Hare expansion plans preserve United’s 14 gate advantage rather than the 9 gate advantage they say they expected after shelling out for 5 new gates themselves. At issue is O’Hare’s $8.5 billion expansion plan, and what they dub a ‘secret provision’ added in ‘at the last minute’ that gives United more gates than they thought the plan entailed. American Airlines at Chicago O’Hare Both United and American have resisted adding gates at Chicago O’Hare for years, since they have most of the gates themselves and don’t want competition. They are happy to see gates added as long as they are the ones who get the gates, and if they’re both getting gates they want to ensure neither gets an advantage over the other. United Airlines at O’Hare Things are…
A Miami-based flight attendant asked about building a buffer to ensure flights are properly catered, “several years ago I was called into the office because I took a 14 minute delay to wait for china plates to plate the food for Brazil. Like I’m going to shut the door and have a first class service to Brazil with no china plates, I just set the tins in front of them.”
There was a lot of discussion at an American Airlines employee Q&A about the carrier’s fleet.
Airline President Robert Isom confirms that “Newer model used aircraft are absolutely something we have an eye out for. As we take a look at where 319s are available we’re gonna be out there after them, because we want ’em”
United Airlines filed their 10-K annual report to the SEC (.pdf), and a couple of things stood out to me in their disclosures about the MileagePlus program.
Most importantly United just isn’t growing the number of miles it sells to partners.
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 »
