Category Archives for Airlines.
United CEO Jeff Smisek was ousted in September 2015 with a $37 million golden parachute after he reportedly agreed to pay off a politician in exchange for favorable action from the Port Authority of New York New Jersey which oversees their Newark airport hub.
It turns out he may have done as much as anyone to preserve the Cathay Pacific brand.
US Airways-turned American President is now United’s President and the airline is on a quest to ‘densify’ aircraft making them less comfortable for passengers.
United Boeing 757-300s currently have 213 seats (189 coach and 24 first class). In December a leaked memo showed that they’re taking Boeing 757-300s up to 234 seats (210 coach and 24 first class). That’s 21 more coach seats.
Southwest Airlines was founded in Texas but its single biggest airport operation is at Chicago Midway. However they forgot that Chicago gets cold, and they ran out of de-icing fluid yesterday having to cancel the rest of the day’s flights — 220 in total.
When redeeming miles using one program for travel on another, you’ll generally have the frequent flyer numer from the account you used to book the ticket in the reservation.
Airlines don’t always want you to change this, or at least make it easy to do so. Here’s now to do it yourself online.
The problem that American faces at LaGuardia — and this hampers all of their shuttle flights, not just Chicago — is that their operations are now consolidated out of the Central Terminal (also known as ‘Terminal B’). And while construction at the airport has been a disaster all around, nowhere more so than for passengers at the Central Terminal. Put another way you really don’t want to land at LaGuardia’s Central Terminal.
May the 65 passengers and 6 crew onboard Saratov Airlines flight 6W-703 operating a domestic flight from Moscow Domodedovo to Orsk rest in peace.
The Antonov 148, registration RA-61704, reportedly collided with a helicopter at around 6000 feet. However reporting on the crash appears to be inferred from video and has not been confirmed.
Yesterday I wrote about American’s “Tell Me Why” podcast with Senior Vice President Kurt Stache. He laid out the airline’s plans for satellite internet and explained why the airline is getting rid of seat back video screens.
American employees comment internally on these discussions. It always amazes me how frank they are. Union protections and management promises notwithstanding I don’t think I’d be so forceful in my criticisms of management as American’s employees often are in these forums.
United is eliminating their mimosa/bloody mary carts and wine carts from Polaris business class effective May 1.
That should speed up service, which is great. It should also reduce consumption, which is great for United’s costs.
An arbitrator ordered that a Southwest Airlines maintenance worker be re-instated and given back pay — minus funds he received during the time he wasn’t employed by Southwest.
That means his income from a job with an aviation school credits against the wages he would have earned. And it includes $25,000 donated to him via a GoFundme page.
The Department of Transportation asked what rules should be repealed and airlines responded with their Christmas lists. Most of what they ask for won’t happen, and some of it is actually worth considering.
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 »
