Category Archives for Airlines.
American Airlines plans to ask the FAA to certify their new Boeing 787-9P with one fewer flight attendant, but has told their union this is just so they could operate the plane that way if they had to – it’s not how they’re going to schedule the aircraft (although I wonder if they would on any domestic or short-haul international segments the plane operates).
A year and a half ago President Biden announced new rules coming to require airlines to pay cash compensation for flight delays and cancellations. Think of it as the U.S.’s answer to Europe’s ‘EU261’ compensation.
They didn’t actually do anything with this while they still could. Their new proposal isn’t yet fully baked, and likely won’t advance farther.
Along with announcing a deal with Citibank that will make them the exclusive issuer of U.S. American Airlines AAdvantage credit cards, the carrier filed an SEC 8-K that offers some limited detail on the financial affects of the 10-year pact.
It turns out that airlines may be missing out on the big money? New technology makes it possible to use spare electricity on planes to mine crypto. And the company that came out with an announcement about this today saw its stock shoot up over 60%.
American Airlines flight attendants will soon pay 48% higher union dues under a plan they’re being asked to vote for. The union is “calling this a dues restructure instead of a dues increase” even though dues will increase. They’re using this language because it isn’t just a single dues increase, but a system of automatic increases that raise dues 48% during the current contract.
Cathay Pacific finds itself managing a crisis because their inflight entertainment system provided access to an episode of The Family Guy.
Cathay apologizes, blames a third party that handles their inflight content, and promises that they’ve provided proper “instructions to ensure that the recommended content meets” State Party censor demands “our company standards.”
JetBlue is back with more major changes to their flying, trying to stem the tide of losses. In a tweetstorm (albeit on Bluesky), aviation watchdog JonNYC lays out changes to routes that JetBlue will be making, both to its Europe flights and to domestic operations from New York, Miami and Seattle and more – changes that the airline hasn’t announced yet.
The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs’ Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations held a hearing today on airline fees. It’s the end of this session of Congress, the chair is losing his position as control of the Senate changes party. So there was one last opportunity for grandstanding against airlines, who are a popular punching bag.
Sometimes airlines make it easy! But most of the punching would make for bad policy in ways that would drive up the cost of travel and leave consumers worse off.
United Airlines sent out an email to all of its employees about planned wage increases – but this was meant to go out to only corporate non-union employees. Flight attendants, who remain in protracted negotiations with the airline, are apparently furious. Their last raise was in 2021.
United Airlines flight 4830 from Little Rock to Houston diverted to Monroe, Louisiana on Monday due to reported smell of smoke in the cockpit. The Embraer 145 regional jet (registration N14148) was operated by CommutAir and originally delivered to Expressjet in 2003.
There were a few interesting things about this flight.
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 »
