Category Archives for Airlines.
The carrier has changed the way they sell tickets, offering fare bundles rather than a la carte and more premium services. Now they’re taking it a step further.
United does something really unique, and I was genuinely surprised by it five years ago at launch. Instead of picking their own corporate charities, and asking you to support their efforts with your miles, they allow charities to solicit miles directly. You actually decide which causes to support. That way your miles align with your values.
The airline has gotten very good about merchandising premium seats – and is willing to sell them very cheap, especially as upsells to infrequent flyers. They want to take a few tens of dollars from a once a year customer rather than upgrading a very frequent flyer who spends tens of thousands of dollars. Delta is also most likely to skip processing upgrade lists at the gate of the major airlines.
After 9/11, the cockpit gets blocked off when the door is opened. A pilot goes to the lavatory, and no one can approach the front of the aircraft. That makes sense, but the flipside is that this should be reserved only for the pilot’s important needs. Here, a Southwest Airlines pilot flying from Dallas Love Field to Los Angeles reportedly spends a part of the flight chatting up a flight attendant, while passengers are forced to wait to use the lavatory. That seems like bad judgment to me – and actually illegal!
When a Delta Air Lines flight from San Francisco to Minneapolis was delayed 14 hours, one passenger was left alone as the only customer still trying to travel. Every other customer had been rebooked instead of waiting. So this flyer had the plane all to themselves – like a Delta private jet.
Thanks to leaks from aviation watchdog JonNYC, we’re getting a pretty complete picture of Delta’s plans to totally revamp its onboard business class product next year.
Two flight attendants were removed from Delta’s flight 49 from Amsterdam to New York JFK on Friday after failing a random breathalyzer test. Since the airline normally operates the flight with more than the legal minimum required complement of cabin crew, they opted to fly as normal while offering more limited service.
Delta Air Lines is preparing to revamp their entire approach to business class. That means ‘choose your own adventure’ good, better, and best fare types as well as new bedding, meals and amenities – and a round of training for flight attendants to provide a more elevated service. This is all prompted by plunging net promoter scores for Delta One compared to pre-pandemic levels.
When computers handle the upgrades, there’s less opportunity for discretion, and as long as everyone is classified correctly on the list. But there are still plenty of cases where gate agents don’t follow the upgrade list.
She managed to get through security without a boarding pass (so TSA botched things first) and then boarded the aircraft without showing credentials to do so either. The flight was completely sold out, so no seats were available to her, but she reportedly hid in a lavatory for takeoff but eventually drew suspicion because she would leave “one lavatory and then just going into a different one…staying inside for a long time.”
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 »
