Category Archives for Commentary.
Joe Turner got food poisoning on a JAL flight. Not fun, and I can relate — I picked up salmonella last month on Qantas (in first, flying Melbourne to Los Angeles). Doesn’t discourage me from flying, though, I’m just not sure how to ‘be more careful’ and avoid such things in the future. Thoughts?
Watch what you say. Don’t make fun of the law, or joke that you might be breaking the law. An air marshall might be listening. Apparently an air marshall overhead some men on a plane talking about having crossed into the U.S. illegally so he had the plane met and the men taken into custody. Some might say: great, law enforcement is present and acting against criminal activity. I’m actually frightened by this, on several levels. The expansion of law enforcement in our midst has been accepted as a way of fighting terrorism (though it’s unclear this particular method is effective in that fight). Now, once in under the cover of fear of terrorism, law enforcement has far greater access to our conversations by simple virtue of being closer to those conversations in daily life…
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When distribution of funds for homeland security is done politically, as pork (the system we have now, more or less), you get farces like this one. Kentucky’s large rural population prompted program coordinators to center this exercise around agriculture. Likewise, he said since Kentucky is one of the nation’s top five goat-producing states, setting the attack at a goat show seemed plausible. The goats “have been infected with a bio-agent. … Then, the infected goats are at the show and you have people come and look at the goats and pet the goats and then they go home,” Cline said, summarizing the day’s scenario. “We try to focus on what really matters to Kentucky,” he said, adding, “this is a perfect way to do it.”
David Rowell looks at Air Canada’s successful public offering of its Aeroplan program, and wonders why United hasn’t gone public with Mileage Plus? Rowell thinks Mileage Plus could be worth $15 billion. That seems a little high to me, I’m also not sure that imputing similar per-member value makes sense. My hunch is that US consumers participate in more frequent flyer programs than Canadian consumers do, so Mileage Plus while valuable may occupy less mindspace than Aeroplan. I’d personally believe a $5 billion market value estimate rather than $15 billion, but what do I know? Either way, it doesn’t change David’s central point that United has a hugely valuable hiddle asset. Contra David, who believes United should sell a large stake in its frequent flyer program to exit bankruptcy and pay back creditors and the…
Via David Rowell, 280 fully armed soldiers boarded a chartered DC10 to fly from Atlanta to Kuwait. M-16s, pistols, bayonets and knives were everywhere. But, as the soldiers made their way through airport security, they had to surrender nose hair clippers, pocket knives and cigarette lighters.
Yesterday someone came to this website while searching for Singapore girls peeing. Today someone found me looking for united airlines Stewardess strippers calendar. At least in the latter case I help out. The website is down but here’s the Google cache. Here’s the news story: [F]ive women, ranging in age from 55 to 64, posed for a 2006 calendar that depicts them in various states of undress in front of a vintage plane, on a park bench and on a plane’s wing, among other locations. Reflecting a mix of humor and anger, it was released to coincide with a bankruptcy court’s approval this week of United’s plan to terminate $9.8 billion in employee pension obligations. While United is never named nor its airplanes shown, every photograph in “Stewardesses Stripped (Of Their Pension?)” is accompanied by…
It’s terribly ironic that the federal government’s (IMHO, correct) decision to deny United taxypayer backing for billion-dollar loan may have lead to the situation where the federal government is taking on an even larger liability for the airline’s pensions. Of course it’s possible that providing the loan would still leave the government in the position of picking up the pensions also. But United provides an interesting illustration of failed U.S. industrial policy. The airline has been operating under bankruptcy protection for two and a half years and continues to lose nine-figure sums each month. Despite cost-cutting and layoffs the airline has no path towards profitability, and labor relations are at a low point. The airline has been kept afloat by the government, by the courts which have kept aircraft lessors at bay (though a recent…
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 »
