Category Archives for Airlines.
Alaska Airlines’ acquisition of Hawaiian Airlines has quietly received Department of Justice approval. After two extensions of the deadline for DOJ to file an anti-trust suit, that looked as though there were ongoing negotiations that would have led to a possible settlement – and DOJ filing an appearance in court in Honolulu in case there wasn’t – the government allowed the time to file to lapse.
The woman said to the crewmember that she “went to college with” Delta CEO Ed Bastian. The Delta flight attendant snapped back, “you should have kept in touch” then! I guess they weren’t that close. Attempted ‘don’t you know who I am’ failed.
Unless there’s another extension, we’ll learn today whether the Department of Justice signs off on an Alaska Airlines – Hawaiian Airlines merger, or files suit against it. The parties have been negotiating feverishly over conditions that Alaska would agree to in order to avoid government opposition. And there’s some suggestion now about what concessions may be demanded.
At the end of the day overhead bin space is first-come, first-served. The polite thing to do is to place your personal item under the seat in front of you. Flight attendants often announce this instruction. But there’s often little enforcement – and taking matters into your own hands often won’t end well.
United is really good about providing on board and in-airport milestone recognition. They’re trying to be better about saying thanks on board as well, even if it’s just words of encouragement for staff making that happen.
I find that things go wrong with my travel quite often. Airlines fail to ticket reservations. I get put on standby for an earlier flight with the wrong priority. Requests I make don’t get entered. Seat assignments disappear. Names get misspelled on tickets even when I have reservations agents spell them back to me.
These things go wrong and I’m supposed to know what I’m doing. So sometimes I wonder how the average traveler manages to get from one place to another at all. Maybe they don’t?
Pilots have been seeing record wages in new deals at the major carriers, in the face of paying too many to retire at the depths of Covid while not adding more to the pipeline, a recovery in air travel, and the time and cost to introduce new pilots as a result of government regulation lobbied for by the big pilot union ALPA. The tide may be about to turn.
Equally frustrating to late departures – or maybe even more problematic – is departing early. It’s the Goldie Locks problem. You plan on the basis of the airline’s schedule, and departing early means you have less time than you though to make it to the airport and through security. You may miss your flight!
Customers have started reporting that they’re seeing blankets and pillows back in domestic first class on American Airlines. That’s on cross country redeye flights.
The space underneath the seat in front of you usually belongs to you. Not every passenger respects this. Your seat opponent may use the space in front of them and the space in front of you. When you arrive at your seat, there’s already a bag sitting where your feet should go.
They might even put their stuff in front of your seat and not in front of theirs to give themselves the extra legroom.
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 »
