The U.S. borders with Canada and Mexico are closed to non-essential travel, but agents on the border processing immigration say they haven’t received guidance on what that means and they’re left to make up the rules themselves.
Immigration officers further resent the number of people coming into the U.S., viewing them as physical threats to their health.
Airlines are still refunding as many third party sales as they are generating new sales. However overall it does appear that the number of cancellations is no longer greater than new bookings. That’s mostly because the trips that were booked before the pandemic have already been cancelled, but it’s a way of thinking about having truly hit bottom already. Now there’s nowhere to go but up.
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.
On Thursday American Airlines spoke to investors and journalists on their earnings call about the financial results during the first quarter and the challenges that lie ahead.
After the earnings call, as they always do, senior leadership at the airline hold a forum where they speak to employees and take questions. Here are 7 of the things they shared during that session, having reviewed a recording of that session.
It’s not just airlines – and airline contractors – who got a big piece of the federal CARES Act. U.S. airports also had $10 billion in grants set aside for them. Payouts are based in part on passengers – but also debt and cash ratios, which created some strange payments to small airports like one in Maine that was awarded enough to operate for 25 years.
United Airlines set the world on first when David Dao was dragged off of a United Express plane and bloodied three years ago. United’s CEO Oscar Munoz apologized… for having to re-accommodate him.
The worldwide outcry was so great that airlines had to revisit their policies for involuntary denied boardings. Now, as United does everything possible to reduce costs, it is scaling back efforts to control the sort of denied boardings that led to David Dao’s being dragged off a plane.
During this morning’s earnings call, United Airlines President Scott Kirby told investors and journalists that the carrier is “planning for zero net passenger revenue for rest of year and into 2021.”
They hope demand recovers but they have plenty of places to go for cash and are driving down expenses. Come the fall the only place left to go for cuts will be reducing employee headcount. They even talked about taking loans out against the MileagePlus program.
The Freddie Awards are the voice of the frequent traveler. Each year millions cast their ballots for the best in loyalty. In normal times the industry comes together at the awards ceremony the last Thursday in April to see the winners (and each other).
Like Delta, American Airlines is capping ticket sales to make sure there’s enough room on their flights for social distancing. This will run through the end of May. And they’ve done an about face on prior policy and will even compensate volunteers to travel later in order to avoid filling up planes.
When American Airlines announced the suspension of most meal service in late March, it made sense. This substantially reduced interactions between customers and flight attendants.
At the time the airline said this suspension would last through April 30. I assumed it would be suspended indefinitely. However it turns out that American is bringing back some catering on flights less than 2200 miles effective May 1. This is available to all passengers in all cabins.
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 »
