Category Archives for Airlines.
Air Canada has introduced ‘basic economy’ fares on domestic flights within Canada.
The goal remains to discourage customers from buying the cheapest fares in hopes they pay more to avoid these restrictions — while not taking their business elsewhere to another carrier.
American Airlines and Los Angeles television station KTLA are running a giveaway. It’s a trip to New York ‘like an A-Lister’ and my first thought was they’re encouraging Southwest Rapid Rewards status challenges.
The contest reveals the airline’s view of the devaluation of AAdvantage.
Virgin America offers padded leather recliner chairs in first class with foot rests and 55 inches seat back to seat back. That’s incredibly generous for most domestic routes. American is shrinking their first class from a ‘generous’ 38 inches for their new domestic standard product.
However it’s not competitive on premium cross country routes where American, Delta, United, and jetBlue all offer flat beds in business class.
The biggest aviation market in the world – by far – is the U.S., based on the number of departing seats. So this isn’t just domestic flights, it’s domestic flights plus outbound international flights as well. Here are the top 10.
The EU as a whole is roughly comparable to the Chinese market. The UK as a whole is the biggest aviation market in Europe, though their former colony India is a bigger market still.
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.
A recent study found that airline check-in kiosks are the least hygienic part of the airport.
So I decided to find out about each airline’s cleaning regimen for kiosks. Or lack of cleaning regimen.
Avianca’s LifeMiles program is introducing ‘subscriptions’ to buy miles.
Plans start at $11 per month. That’s buying 8000 miles for $131.88 or 1.65 cents apiece. However the price per mile quickly falls. The $32.99 plan is buying miles at 1.41 cents per mile.
Southwest Airlines got as many reviews for its app in one month as in the previous 8 years, and they were nearly all 5 stars, “the numbers, frankly, look too good to be true.” This all began with the latest update to the app on January 17.
Kerry Philipovitch, American’s Senior Vice President of Customer Experience defends the idea of Basic Economy fares in the latest “Tell Me Why” podcast aimed at the airline’s employees.
She says that without Basic Economy “we’re going to see our most price sensitive travelers leave us” — as though stripped down fares are necessary to offer low fares, and even though immediately after she explains that American had been offering fares that match ultra low cost carriers before Basic Economy.
American Airlines has myriad aircraft in different configurations from legacy American Airlines decisions before the merger and from US Airways, and a series of individual decisions along the way. Customers can luck out with better aircraft for passenger experience and worse aircraft.
They’re making efforts to standardize the fleet where they can, and that means the 13 Boeing 777-200s with 45 business class seats will each be losing 8 seats up front.
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 »
