News and notes from around the interweb:
- “Hate check” is the perfect Freudian slip.
Thanks @united for making me hate check my bag when there are TWO empty cabins right above my seat to LGA. Absolutely ridiculous. pic.twitter.com/wJlb4MjUhO
— Amanda (@amcmahon10) January 29, 2024
- American Airlines wants its Concierge Key members to know that electric carts are never guaranteed even when requested, and agents shouldn’t even check on their availability.
I never had a request denied (my daughter liked it!), and once an agent saw me limping (I’d hurt my leg) and without saying anything called ahead to make sure a golf cart would meet me in Dallas even though my connection was on the same concourse.
- Gary Leff: “left-wing observer of the airline industry and defender of United”
- Say what? Man accused of following woman into Las Vegas hotel room in violent sexual assault later arrested for stealing from buffet
- Maya Leibman – former American AAdvantage President, who stepped down in spring 2022 as the airline’s CIO – has fully retired. Former Chairman and CEO Doug Parker notes she was the last legacy American Airlines senior executive standing.
- The Breeze Airways balance sheet is really strange
- Boeing has withdrawn its request to exempt the 737 MAX 7 from new safety rules that didn’t apply to earlier new aircraft and were legislated after the MAX 8 grounding. They heard the message loud and clear from Capitol Hill that this was dead and a bad look to pursue (of course Congress granted their exemption request for the MAX 10).
Thanks for the positive story about AA’s gate agents. So many negitives but so many many more positives happen and go unnoticed. The past few years, I’ve traveled on AA with sick and elderly parents; a wife who had two emergency kidney stone issues while out of town and during the entire pandemic to see and take care of my folks during their last months, weeks and days of life. AA was there for me, from finding the right seats, getting us bumped up (we are EP and PP but still sometime no seats available) and even getting me a cup of coffee on a 2020 5 am morning flight from PHX to PHL when everything else was closed and “no services” were to be provided.
Thanks AA, you won my loyalty for life for taking care of me and my family during our most difficult journies of life. Be great to see people on here highlight and share the good and ignore the spotlight seekers for 2024.
Left wing? The guy must be smoking the good stuff. You even self-identify as a libertarian which is a right wing ideology although you do espouse some views that don’t pigeonhole neatly into the current standards of that group either.
Gary Leff, known lover of government
The airlines are themselves responsible for the overcrowding of passengers into the extra seats , and the entire carry-on bag fiasco .
If Dennis thinks Gary is left-leaning, wait until he reads the rest of the travel blog-osphere. His head will explode.
I guess this is View from the Left Wing…compared to the author of that article, I would say almost everyone would be left-wing.
The cart or wheelchair is a big need for many people with injuries or just issues with getting old. Fortunately I’m still doing fine but I have a relative in his 80s who has a hip issue that makes walking distances very difficult and painful.
Airports are not designed to minimize walking and don’t have enough resources to help those who need some help navigating those mile long walks in the airport as well as getting into the airport and getting on the plane. It is tough getting old or injured.
I like the term “hate check” an hope it sticks for gate agents unnecessarily checking carry-on roller bags.
As for Hogans, Judge Amy Ferreira set bail at $3,000 so she must not think he is dangerous after sexually assaulting a woman.
When Parker stepped down, AA did, too. Same with SWA.
The safety exemption request Boeing withdrew was for the engine nacelle anti-icing overheating problem common with all MAX aircraft. It’s going to be more than two yrs to get the new solution deployed. Currently, the anti-icing has to be manually turned off soon after leaving icing condition or the nacelle can overheat and possibly depart the engine. I suspect Boeing has realized they will have the new solution before they are going to get the MAX 7 certified anyway. Originally, they requested an exemption until May 2026. This is not the exemption to Congressional rules for updating the computers on newer aircraft designs, which Congress delayed the rules to allow the MAX 7 and 10 to fall under the old rules.
This issue would make me concerned on an ETOPS flight, on any MAX given the additional drag an engine without a nacelle would have, and the dependency on the pilot to remember to turn off the anti-icing system.
Dennis Prager is nothing more than a mean, ultra right wing jerk. I think Gary should accept his characterizaion as a badge of honor.
Cactusdick, I think you mean when Crandall stepped down AA went down. Carty was garbage and Aprey couldn’t fix the damage, so they put Horton to send AA through bankruptcy, Parker should of just ran Cactus into permanent BK. AW was just looking at a 2nd trip to BK, AA didn’t need BK they had 4.1bil on hand during the downturn 2011, they would of been fine, and the fact to survive AW needed a partner because mergers were happening and AW needed to merge and no other airline would consider the match to AW, especially since the morale has gone to a new low because of merging employees seniorities from their previous airlines. Piedmont/PSA/USAir became the new USAir, and after AA employees were burned by Carty, Aprey was forced to leave because of loss of not getting concessions from employees, because of no trust to Corp. Insert Horton, who threatened BK, Whom AA unions held talks with Parker, who promised no cutbacks in pay or employees for their blessings of the merger, through that took forever because even at the time of said merger USAir was still in heavy negotiations with their employees union groups and were way beyond their respective contracts timelines, but promised if the US employees would give their blessings Parker would settle those contracts before the companies merge. So AA kept their name and US runs it, which is probably why the stock is disfunctional. The shocking thing is AA stock was so high in their hayday when Crandall ran it 153.00 per share, before the purposed stock split. AA was definitely the leader in those times, problem was they got too bloated, especially when AirCal & Reno Air came into the fold, along with TWA, which in my opinion doomed AA, along with trying to expand so quickly. AirCal was AA’s answer to the acquisition to PSA getting swallowed by USAir to protect their presence in California, then Reno came along to bolster the West Coast corridor and to create an low cost airline within an Parent airline, which was a bust, folding Reno Air employees within AA/Aircal employees. Again, disappointed earlier AA employees morale by bad decisions of overgrowth.
@Gary do you know if the airlines do a bag count under the plane to compare with the number of bag tags that they generated? Reason I ask is a DL Platinum Medallion (in a Facebook discussion group) was upset when she was asked to gate check her bag (size and number of bags were OK) and saw lots of bin space after boarding,. She vowed to rip off her (gate checked) bag tag next time and just keep boarding to find overhead space. In the discussion, she was cautioned that doing so would upset the bag count, and that the flight would be delayed while they figured out why the bag count under the plane didn’t match with the number of bag tags generated. I thought this was BS. Do you know for sure if they do or don’t do this??????
@Don in ATL – this doesn’t cause a flight delay https://viewfromthewing.com/i-ignored-the-united-airlines-gate-agent-when-she-told-me-to-check-my-carry-on-bag-was-that-wrong/
Note that some airlines take your carry on bag at the gate rather than sending you down the jetbridge with it.
@Gary – THANKS.
dblbla – Apparently you are one of the brainwashed, moralless, left wing liberals that Dennis Prager correctly describes. If you had any shame, you should be ashamed. You and everyone who thinks like you are what is wrong with America.
Maya only kept her job because the USAir CIO decided not to move away from Arizona after the 2012 acquisition.
@Christian
If you think libertarians are right wing, you are painfully uninformed.