Category Archives for Airlines.
f you aren’t at the boarding gate when your flight is called, you probably aren’t going to get overhead bin space. If the flight is full, and you aren’t among the first half of passengers on the plane, your carry-on bag is likely going to be taken away from you and gate checked.
Half the time when you get onto the plane, though, you still see overhead bins with plenty of space. You were lied to! The bins weren’t full after all. So what gives?
Southwest Airlines flight 3278 almost took off from a taxiway at Orlando International Airport at around 9:30 a.m. on Thursday. The Boeing 737-800 was flagged down by air traffic control as it approached 70 knots according to ADS-B data before hitting the brakes.
If you’re in the aisle seat, especially, you need to offer to get up whenever a passenger needs access. That’s part of the deal of the aisle seat. You have more direct access to the lavatory, but you need to grant access to others.
Are all of the changes Southwest Airlines is making too much, too fast? Not for the passengers who have been largely negative on this like checked bag fees and basic economy restrictions, one thing after another taken away from customers with nothing really added that makes life better.
Here what I’m troubled by is whether they’ve taken on too many projects to quickly in order to actually pull them off without significant service disruptions and customer inconvenience.
Everyone is mad mad at Southwest Airlines for abandoning its business model, customer focus, and core principles. They’re laying off employees, outsourcing, eliminating free checked bags, moving to (paid) assigned seats and devaluing Rapid Rewards.
So now is the perfect time for another airline to go after their customers aggressively, court them, and win them over. American Airlines is doing that – but just isn’t really telling anyone about it?
We now know something about what routes will see these new planes first. Aviation watchdog JonNYC says that the plan is for the plane to operate domestically Chicago to Los Angeles and back, before going into international service on the Chicago – London Heathrow route.
Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) was photographed flying first class on Tuesday with fellow Vermont Senator Peter Welch. Many people online are calling the self-described socialist Sanders a hypocrite for flying in a premium class of service, while the working classes suffer coach.
When Southwest Airlines moves to assigned seating they will no longer line everyone up prior to boarding. Like the rest of the airline’s moves, Southwest’s boarding process will converge towards being much more like other airlines.
Gone will be the stanchions, and having passengers line up by group and number. In its place with be 9 boarding groups.
Delta SkyMiles is one of the least valuable frequent flyer programs for mileage earning and redemption. It’s that way intentionally. But it has been even worse for Europeans, and for members who want to book one-way tickets back from Europe.
Back in the fall I broke news that American Airlines was testing new tech to enforce boarding groups at its gates. One gate agent in Dallas, though, doesn’t think that’s enough. They threaten passengers with additional consequences for trying to board out of turn.
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 »
