The Essential Air Service program pays airlines to fly routes that aren’t economically viable. Now the program will pay airlines to not fly those same routes.
Airlines are cancelling flights and downsizing their operations because of the global coronavirus pandemic. When they don’t fly the flights they’ve sold, they have to refund customers’ money.
The European Union’s rule 261 applies and requires these refunds. The E.U. reiterated that last month. However European airlines have been ignoring this and not processing refunds, at least for their European customers.
Now 12 European nations are siding with airlines against their people.
Yesterday United Airlines removed partner award charts from its website. The only reason a loyalty program removes award charts is so that they can raise the price of awards while trying to hide what they’re doing. I have never seen a program eliminate award charts and become more valuable.
We now know exactly why United pulled these charts yesterday without any notice to members. Seriously, they’re doing this now?
Data shows people are still searching for trips – searches for April and May travel were down significantly, but travel searches for later in the year are way up compared to 2019.
Airlines haven’t had difficulty borrowing billions of dollars against assets like planes, gates, hangars and parts. What’s not often pointed out, though, is that the liquidity Delta and other major companies are securing is itself part of another federal bailout program.
The Hong Kong International Airport is testing a new booth that people can walk through that will take their temperatures and disinfect their clothing and bodies. It does not test for the presence of viruses, though, or whether someone is contagious.
Velocity Frequent Flyer built cash in a trust and if the program failed it would, in theory, pay out money to members for their accumulated miles. That’s great in theory except… that trust lent AU$200 million [US$129 million] to the airline. Whoops.
On Tuesday evening a private pilot took this flight over Maryland.
The Blue Angels and Thunderbirds performed a joint flyover, the Navy and Air Force squadrons performed a tribute to health care workers over Philadelphia, Trenton and New York. But this one solo pilot, I think, truly did the country proud.
Effective today the Port Authority of New York New Jersey is limiting access to Newark, LaGuardia, and JFK airports to “ticketed passengers, airport employees, and other with a need to enter for airport business.” Clearing security is already limited, so these new restrictions focus on pre-security areas of the terminals.
United said that partner awards would continue to price as they always had even once award charts were removed for United flights. This wasn’t true – since they were charging extra for booking partner flights close to departure.
Nevertheless they kept a copy of the Star Alliance award chart on their website. Now they’ve removed it. And a spokesperson says this is exactly what you should have expected!
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 »
