News and notes from around the interweb:
- Airlines that are blocking middle seats are driving increases in their net promoter score natch. That’s easy to do when you’ve got planes grounded, and you’re paying employees not to fly. You can add another flight just for the cost of fuel. And it drives a lot of extra value to the customer, whether it’s prophylactic or not.
If you’ve got a non-stop option to fly Southwest, Delta, JetBlue or Alaska you should do that – over United or American. I’m not sure I’d take a connecting flight on an airline that blocks middle seats versus a non-stop flight on one that does not, however – that’s more travel time, more time at airport gates and on jetways.
- Nice visualization.
This is American Airlines' September 2020 widebody network, consisting of passenger and cargo-only flights. It's quite extensive and there's some new cargo-only additions, such as CLT-MUC on the 777-200ER, JFK-GRU, LAX-LHR, and NRT-HKG (originating from LAX) pic.twitter.com/WnoG9g0w88
— Ishrion Aviation (@IshrionA) August 17, 2020
- Hong Kong bans Air India for two weeks after 11 passengers tested positive for Covid-19 off a single flight. (You’d think the airline having pilots they’ve fired keep flying but have done it too…)
- The head of Ireland’s tourism authority resigned after going on holiday to Italy because it’s government policy that people should avoid non-essential travel (and not because the person most in charge of promoting tourism to Ireland couldn’t come up with the vacation they wanted in Ireland).
- Singapore Airlines isn’t offering first class or suites until February 2021
- You can now transit Singapore from any country served by Singapore Airlines – except Philippines or the United States
@gary
“I’m not sure I’d take a connecting flight on an airline that blocks middle seats versus a connecting flight that does not, however…”
I don’t think that’s worded correctly. I think you’re getting at it’s actually versus a “non-stop” flight that does not block middle seats.
Why are we paying flight attendants and pilots to continually fly all over this country helping to spread the virus? Furthermore, another bailout is only putting off what we all know will occur. We will be paying all of these people unemployment checks any way you look at it. It’s clear what happens next, whether on Oct, 1, 2020 or…surprise March 2021. All this money should be funneled to feeding and housing the poor and unemployed people in this country The virus…speaks for itself.
So far I’ve only flown AA this summer and every AA flight I’ve taken is full. I think they prefer the cash to a higher Net Promoter Score!
We all know blocking the middle seats is Virus Theater. You either get COVID on airplanes or you don’t. The fact that people don’t seem to get COVID on airplanes is one of the few better-than-we-could-have-expected virus stories so far (and therefore is largely ignored!).
BTW, sometimes I get emails from AA in advance telling me my flight is full (and offering me a free change) and sometimes I don’t. I don’t understand why. In any event, I’ve never been offered a change that’s be a plausible option — most have involved circuitous routes and long layovers. They just don’t seem to have many empty seats flying around, at least on the major routes.
Just wanted to say you run a decent blog, Gary. Been reading it for several years.
When booking DEN-MCI I preferred direct on UA because it was a third of the price of SWA and Frontier. I’m more concerned about TSA agents and people at the airport than sitting next to one person for the duration of the flight.