Better Airline And Hotel Cleaning Needs To Stay With Us Even After Covid-19

by Gary Leff

a321 aisle
Jul 17 2020

In previous challenging times airlines cut back on their cleaning, going as long as 18 months between deep cleans. Now despite losing billions of dollars per quarter airlines have stepped up their level of cleaning every day.

That needs to continue. Covid-19 isn’t the only threat to health. People are going to have this experience fresh in their minds. Masks are likely to persist at least for some, even after they’re no longer required inflight. Airlines and hotels are going to need to compete on clean.

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A Vaccine Alone Won’t Be Enough To Make Travel Normal Again

by Gary Leff

Jul 17 2020

Many readers have said consistently throughout the pandemic that they will not travel until there is a vaccine. I think it’s the wrong paradigm for thinking about future travel both because a vaccine won’t be the cure all many people expect and because travel itself seems pretty safe, the issue is what you find at your destination.

We know a lot more about Covid-19 than we did three and four months ago. Much of what we think we know is still speculative. There’s learning which suggests real optimism, even as the virus spreads rapidly through much of the country (especially the southern portion). But the idea that we’re just hanging in for a vaccine, and once we have one everything goes back to normal, no longer holds up as we learn more about what vaccines against the novel coronavirus can do. At the same time it’s one part of a tool kit that will bring life and travel back to what it once was – and taken together likely even get us most of the way there in the first half of 2021.

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Airline And Hotel Employees Use Their Prejudices To Report You For Crimes

by Gary Leff

Jul 17 2020

An African American social service worker is suing American Airlines after she was accused of kidnapping a one year old white baby while traveling with him on a flight. She was accused of “holding a kidnap victim.” In fact she was returning from a two week court-ordered visit for the child with his father.

See something, say something isn’t just for airport security, it’s supposed to stop human trafficking and travel industry employees are asked to speak up when their prejudices training makes them think something could be amiss.

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The 11 Countries That Have Brought Back The Most Domestic Flying

by Gary Leff

Jul 16 2020

Vietnam, with its borders still closed to the world, actually has more domestic flying scheduled now than they had a year ago. Vietnam is one of the countries that did the best battling COVID-19, despite sharing a land border with China. They haven’t had a single death.

China, too, has brought back substantial flying – and is at nearly 85% of the domestic seat capacity that it was a year ago. That may not be all driven by demand, but by a mandate to keep workers employed and the economy moving even when flights aren’t full.

The U.S. is actually only 11th in bringing back domestic flying capacity.

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The Bahamas Testing Requirement For Americans Is Covid Security Theater

by Gary Leff

Jul 16 2020

The Bahamas is trumpeting their re-opening plan to welcome tourists. Americans can visit with a negative Covid-19 PCR test and filling out a health screening.

The Covid-19 test just has to be within 10 days of travel. That’s convenient given how backed up testing is in the U.S. But it’s also useless – in fact a positive test that’s 10 days old might be better!

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American Airlines And JetBlue Launching Northeast Partnership

by Gary Leff

jfk art
Jul 16 2020

This new American Airlines-JetBlue partnership paints a path forward for American Airlines to grow and compete in New York, one of the key elements that has been missing from its strategy, including from its co-brand credit card strategy. It has the potential to make American Airlines more relevant to cardmembers in the financially-important New York market, just as the Alaska Airlines partnership can help in the Bay Area and Seattle where tech money is significant. Whether or not this succeeds comes down to execution and whether the partnerships grow to their potential.

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American Airlines Will Now Show Your Flight’s Upgrade List 12 Hours In Advance

by Gary Leff

flight info
Jul 16 2020

Frequent flyers know the feeling of waiting for a ‘battlefield promotion’ at the gate. We have our elite status and upgrade requested, and we’re hovering waiting to see what our chances are.

Now you don’t have to wait until four hours prior to flight to begin refreshing the upgrade list obsessively in the American Airlines mobile app because it now shows your flight’s upgrade list 12 hours prior to departure.

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