Category Archives for Airlines.
At the beginning of February I shared the strong rumor that Air New Zealand would announce Auckland – Chicago non-stop. They’ve just done that, and alongside United has announced their San Francisco – Auckland will become year-round rather than seasonal.
Sunday’s Air France regional HOP flight A5-235 from Paris-Orly to Aurillac experienced a loud noise that could be heard inside the cabin. It turned out there were large cracks and holes in the plane’s fuselage.
Sleeping passengers were awakened by the noise on this 265 mile domestic flight.
Earlier this month American Airlines maintained that they hadn’t decided whether or not to put Boeing 757s with lie flat seats on domestic routes or not, even as their competitors roll out more domestic flights with lie flat seats up front.
It’s been expected for awhile that American would respond to this competition, and indeed they’ve taken some 757s off of international routes, but they wouldn’t say they’re adding them to the domestic schedule. Nonetheless they are now saying privately that this is what will ultimately happen.
Starting today EVA Air flies a Hello Kitty jet on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday Los Angeles – Taipei.
There are special boarding passes and baggage stickers, Hello Kitty crew uniforms, and the seats are transformed into Hello Kitty with headrest covers and pillows. Meal service features utensilves, cups, and napkins that are Hello Kitty. The lavatories are stocked with themed toilet paper.
A DFW-based captain asked American Airlines CEO Doug Parker about ‘D0’. He said the airline’s emphasize on exactly on-time departures, and the processes around questioning decisions and following up when they miss exact on-time departures “feels punitive on all the people.”
British Airways Executive Club will go more revenue-based for mileage-earning and redemption. Here they’ll copy Lufthansa, Alitalia, and Air France.
On the earning side that’s almost meaningless, it’s already one of the original mostly-revenue based programs with both miles earned based on fare class and elite tier points based on fare as well. This would just tie revenue and miles more directly, a change in technology. On the redemption side though this is bad for members.
A week ago I asked whether we were beginning to see the end of ‘Polaris’ at United, ditching their attempt to offer a superior business class product.
The soft product is getting cut back. Reportedly United President Scott Kirby “doesn’t believe in Polaris and he knows it hasn’t created a [fare] premium.” Just a week ago I predicted ‘death by 1000 cuts.’ We’re already starting the countdown.
During Thursday’s American Airlines employee ‘crew news’ question and answer session a Lima-based flight attendant asked about the old Boeing 757s and 767s American flies down there.
She says the one thing “that is sad for me” is that when she tells people she’s a flight attendant their interest is piqued, but then when she says she works for American “they’re like really?”
American held a Crew News session with employees on Thursday and a first officer asked about new aircraft orders and the extent that manufacturers consult with American on what they want to see as they develop new plane types. As an aside he asked about American’s A350 simulator and whether it might be possible to rent time in it.
They donated charter flights to bring students to a gun protest in DC.
So much for their ‘neutral status’ in the gun debate. I don’t think they need to stay neutral, I just don’t think they can have it both ways.
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 »
