News notes from around the interweb:
- Fly Data Guy on Delta’s push to drop small cities
- Australia and New Zealand could open up travel – but initially only to each other
- Why Hertz is collapsing while Avis seems likely to survive
- Hyatt.com shows expected hotel re-opening dates
- Uber will require both riders and drivers to wear masks
As part of the policy, Uber is in the process of developing technology to detect if drivers are wearing masks or face coverings before they go online and start accepting trips, said the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the policy decision was just made recently and has not yet been introduced. The company already has face verification capabilities as part of its “Real Time ID-check” feature used to verify the identity of drivers. Uber is also looking into ways to hold riders accountable, the person said.
- New York City hotels for coronavirus patient recover are sitting empty.
As of 4 a.m. Monday, the LaGuardia Plaza Hotel in Queens had 10 occupants and the Aloft next to it had 11 while a Hampton Inn and a Hilton Garden Inn in undisclosed locations in the city had no guests, according to a NYC Health + Hospitals document viewed by The Post.
Together the four hotels had 1,096 rooms and just 21 occupants, the document said.
- El Al pilots, stuck at home.
@Gary: Thanks for the Delta article.
Delta made a deal with the Department of the Treasury to maintain minimum service levels until October 1. Delta’s requests should be summarily rejected. Have Delta’s executives flown to PIH or IDA – doubt it. Two separate markets. What’s next? Is Delta going to file to abandon EAS flights that are likely now flying with few or no passengers? I think not – those flights are subsidized even if they fly empty.
If I had known Carl Icahn owned Hertz, I would have switched to another car rental company a long time ago. Icahn is the man who single-handedly drove TWA out of business. The thought that I’ve unknowingly given him as much as a dime’s worth of business makes me depressed.