Category Archives for General.
American’s President Scott Kirby became the President of United Airlines. He found that United’s credit card program was lagging and also shared that in his experience onboard is the single most effective acquisition channel. So United started making these announcements too.
We all have perceptions of risk, and they often vary widely from what the data actually says. My willingness to visit certain parts of the world is colored in the opposite direction from most people. Living for many years in Alexandria, Virginia and working in Arlington my daily commute took me past the Pentagon. This wasn’t just a potential primary military target, it had actually been attacked directly on 9/11 when a hijacked aircraft crashed into the building. Most places have less risk than this. Years ago when I traveled to Cyprus as a result of Alitalia’s $33+tax fat finger business class fare from Toronto which allowed stopovers in Italy, a friend of my wife’s was afraid for us. Turkey invaded, after all, in 1974 following a military coup there. Beach in Cyprus I’ll be…
If you’re in the aisle seat, is it fair game to go to sleep?
And if you’re not in the aisle seat — and you have to use the lavatory — do you wake the person sitting next to you in order to get up and go, or do you hold it?
Does it depend on how long the flight is?
Star Alliance member Asiana is suffering widespread delays for catering and many flights are leaving without meals at all, even on trips as long as twelve hours.
Reportedly on Sunday “51 flights departed behind schedule and 38 left the airport without meals to feed passengers.” Then on Monday “18 out of 75 international flights operated by the carrier were delayed more than an hour and 16 short-haul flights to Japan and China even departed from the Incheon International Airport without in-flight meals.”
American Airlines has redesigned the look of the AAdvantage website account page which may presage more targeted promotions. There are two new promotions announced to start.
Etihad is dropping one of its two New York JFK – Abu Dhabi Airbus A380 flights, and putting the A380 on Paris – Abu Dhabi. That means there will be two daily Paris – Abu Dhabi flights with the A380.
The Etihad A380 features the ‘First Apartment’ — one of the three best first class products in the sky. There’s a separate bed and seat, and living space which was unprecedented when the product was introduced. In addition it’s only one of two first class products with a shower onboard.
On Friday’s Singapore Airlines flight SQ516 from Singapore to Kolkata, India was delayed four hours due to non-working air conditioning onboard. But apparently crew didn’t keep passengers informed about what was wrong or what it looked like to fix the aircraft.
There weren’t any refreshments served during the delay that stretched as long as the block time for this four-times weekly Airbus A330. Allegedly sick passengers were refused water.
I admit I didn’t even know that 7-11 had a rewards program, which is good because if I did I might have been invested in the program and now I’d be really disappointed.
The Office of Special Counsel today wrote to the President and Congress to reveal that “safety inspectors at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) have improperly approved aircraft for commercial operations without first reviewing critical safety information that in some cases would have prohibited their operation.”
That sounds pretty scary and this is going to get some coverage but it turns out that most of the issues didn’t actually involve safety issues. They included things like expired registrations. And the majority dealt with small charter aircraft.
American Airlines is reportedly looking at seasonal Philadelphia – Dubrovnik service.
Authorities in Dubvrovnik have been looking for twice weekly year-round service from New York. There’s a large Croatian population in New York, and an even bigger one in Pittsburgh.
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 »
