New and notes from around the interweb:
- Chinese state media tars Cathay Pacific with 9/11 and MH370, because Hong Kong democracy protests
“If a Hong Kong flight heading to the US had pilots who opposed the US, what do you think the US government would do to these people?” Leung wrote.
Mei Xinyu, a research fellow with the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation under the Ministry of Commerce, told the Global Times that the management of Cathay needs to have a profound understanding of these incidents.
“The civil aviation industry is special, because if an airline is not trustworthy, it will generate huge risks,” warned Mei. “We cannot forget the September 11 attacks or the missing Malaysia Airlines flight.”
- Southwest outed a passenger’s flight number on twitter, he was a security professional, then claimed that’s not personal information. They’ve apologized.
- W Washington DC introduces Mukbang room service (HT: One Mile at a Time)
Mukbang, the South Korean phenomenon in which vloggers stream themselves eating large quantities of food, has now made its way to the W Hotel in Washington, DC. The DC location of the hotel chain is introducing its Sip & Slurp menu, an extravagant $285 room service package that comes with a lavalier lapel mic and a cell phone stand so guests can film their very own mukbangs.
- Here’s Delta proactively offering compensation when a flight only offers streaming entertainment and no seat back video. The opposite of some other airlines, eh?
- Delta’s monthly surplus sale (HT: Jonathan W.)
- If you want to avoid bed bugs, put your suitcase in the bath tub
I had a recent situation where a friend asked me to assist booking his flights to visit a terminally ill family member.
They requested JetBlue, if only because like many New Yorkers, he doesn’t own a car, and therefore also don’t drive very often.
So, he wanted JetBlue because it has JFK-BUR nonstops, while other airlines don’t.
Fast forward to departure date late last month when JetBlue canceled his flight within a few hours of departure – and rebooked him on its nonstop to Ontario nearly 50 miles away from Burbank without consulting him if that airport was a viable alternative.
Long story short:
After contacting me from JFK Airport, which is where he learned his BUR flight was canceled and he was put on JetBlue’s ONT flight instead of one of its flights to LAX, after I reached out to Delta to book a seat on its JFK-LAX nonstop instead, they were incredibly helpful and accommodating from start to finish.
I cannot even begin to describe just how much of a study in contrasts that experience was with JetBlue being completely unsympathetic to his needs, especially for a trip as difficult as these types to visit terminally ill loved ones are for all of us, with Delta stepping up without hesitation once I provided limited documentation (as similarly provided to JetBlue) of his ailing family member’s illness.
Simply put, very often I’ve been extremely critical of our airlines, along with examples of how too few remaining options in an overly concentrated industry that nearly always says and acts exactly as virtually every Econ 101 textbook describes for industries that have become cartels, oligopolies; or as happens with businesses (such as cable tv/internet providers; electric utilities, etc., or of course, government agencies such as the DMV that faces no competition at all and it shows) that act like callous, indifferent & abusive monopolies where customer service sorely lacks; fees and other surcharges proliferate because there’s little if any competitors to fear poaching customers (hello! excessive rental fees for cable boxes, remotes & routers, anyone? or of course, anything remotely resembling “customer service” at the DMV?) – because they pretty much are virtual monopolies (or for cable tv/ISPs used to be, anyway…).
But, in this instance, where my friend was booked on a completely different airline, and Delta certainly could’ve viewed him as having “made his bed and the having to sleep in it with JetBlue” instead of doing as Delta did, and treating him as if he was a longtime Delta statused frequent flyer as they did.
And for that, Delta deserves all due praise for that – because it turned around an already difficult trip, that took a turn for the worse when my friend arrived at JetBlue’s terminal that day, and discovered his flight to Burbank had been canceled – and his new flight was to Ontario instead.
Now, if only Delta would replace those VERY, VERY, VERY OLD Boeing 767-400s flown multiple times daily between JFK-LAX they’d really have something extra special to offer on their transcons! 😉
But, other than the ancient 767-400s, Delta really outdid itself that day – and it sure did put JetBlue to shame.
Sorry, JetBlue, but y’all fell far short in how you handled that booking, while Delta’s customer service was simply amazing!
United also provides compensation for inop IFE; I got it last week BOS-SFO.
I recently flew British Airways London to Austin and the in flight system didn’t work for part of the flight. It was inconvenient. I wrote in to complain and they only gave me 3,000 Avios points per person (I had 5 people with me in all) so they gave 15,000 points.
I got that Delta letter flying LAX to JFK recently. They’re subbing in the first refurbished 767-400 for an older 767. I was just happy to try the new suites (suite-ish anyway) and the aircraft had wifi, so I didn’t care about IFE at all. As it happened, the flight was very poor for other reasons (a Delta One meal that was so bad it shocked me and catching the flight crew chomping down on the pre-landing cookies which they didn’t serve). Quite an experience, so the points helped (15,000, FYI).
was delayed 8 hrs at jfk last week. DL gave me 7500 miles for the inconvenience.
A friend of mine got $300 for faulty screen from United when we traveled from Paris to SFO. I was surprised at the generosity.