Last August American Airlines announced plans to fly from Dallas Fort Worth to Tel Aviv. With the announcement of their new partnership with JetBlue they unveiled plans to fly New York JFK – Tel Aviv.
There’s been speculation that this meant moving the DFW flight to New York and operating just a single Tel Aviv service.
Back in March an American Airlines flight attendant wrote about her ordeal trying to wear a face shield while working flights. She viewed it as taking precautions to protect herself while some passengers refused to comply with the carrier’s mask requirement. The airline told her she should just go on leave if she felt unsafe, and that she made “customers feel uncomfortable.”
Now American Airlines has reportedly reversed its ban on flight attendants wearing face shields.
David Harris, Jr. is apparently popular in certain circles as a black man who supports President Trump, though I hadn’t heard of him until he made a ruckus on an American Airlines flight – refusing to wear a mask, and advising his followers that only N95 masks are prophylactic, which isn’t supported by the balance of evidence at this point.
Apparently Mr. Harris held up a flight departure on Saturday when he boarded without a mask on, and passengers complained. He reports that he “declared [to] have a medical reason to not wear a mask.”
Even in the shadows mileage brokering is a $600 – $700 million a year business. One platform is trying to provide transparency and assurance to an industry that’s full of scammers. But in many cases the transactions are against the rules and still carry risk.
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
Since Wednesday, July 22 American Airlines has been able to apply up to 8 credits from cancelled ticket to a single new ticket purchase.
When you cancel a trip, any residual value is stored alongside your ticket number. The ticket number is what’s used to apply a credit to a new reservation. American’s AACoRN system now lets an agent enter multiple ticket numbers – up to 8 – that have credits attached to them, and apply them all to a booking.
I’ve been expecting the Boeing 737 MAX to return to the skies before the end of the year, and it’s looking a bit touch and go whether it’ll re-enter commercial service by then. However American Airlines President Robert Isom told employees of the airline on Thursday that they currently expect the plane to be approved to fly by the FAA in October and back in the air flying for commercial airlines in December.
Hilton says that their hotels shouldn’t be used to house children detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, after it was revealed several franchised properties near the U.S.-Mexico border were housing children and their private contractor chaperones prior to deportation. These properties have hosted over 200 bookings of this nature.
Here’s a challenge for you: If you think an airline or hotel chain ought to decide whom they’ll do business with on the basis of their values, wouldn’t you also have to support bakeries choosing to provide wedding cakes only to heterosexual couples if that’s what’s dictated by their values? Or should businesses only make decisions about whom to serve based on your values?
With the global pandemic, airlines have looked to cut costs wherever they can, while saying the changes are driven by safety concerns.
Just last weekend I reported that American Airlines, which started giving out fruit and cheese plates in domestic first class on flights over 900 miles, eliminated meals on the longest domestic flights of more than 2200 miles (such as Miami- Seattle) and similar-length international flights. They’ve already done an about face on this plan.
United scored a real marketing coup when they licensed Clorox’s name for their efforts. This week they promised to increase outside airflow during boarding and deplaning. And at the end of next week they’re slated to introduce a new cleaning technology into their cockpits.
However conversations with several airline executives paint a different picture of the airline’s investments. While on Monday CEO Scott Kirby said “I am going to keep encouraging our team to explore and implement new ideas, new technologies, new policies and new procedures that better protect our customers and employees,” I’m told they’ve even let go of the employee driving their cleaning technology projects as part of non-union their layoffs.
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 »
