Over the past several days multiple airline flight crews have refused to work their flights because they were carrying passengers off of Holland America’s Zaandam cruise ship.
Now the U.S. government will no longer allow returning cruise passengers to take commercial flights.
An Aer Lingus passenger is suing because she says flight attendants yanked out of the lavatory as the plane prepared to go into its takeoff roll.
The passenger says she was “dragged back to her seat while her pants were still below her knees, exposing her buttocks and genitalia to other passengers.”
Air Canada has come up with a couple of interesting things to make it worth continuing to earn status and make it even easier to do so even while doing something good during the current crisis.
While demand is limited, it’s growing, and United Airlines is considering a once a week return to Shanghai.
Apple has historically purchased 50 business class seats a day on San Francisco – Shanghai from United
I had several reports on recent travels started but I’ve put those aside. I’m not sure it adds a lot of value to anyone right now to write about award travel to Bora Bora, or why I love to go to Paris over the winter (contrary to popular wisdom December and January are my favorite months).
Now though my trips to report on revolve around the grocery store, part of an ongoing series on the world’s most extreme staycation. Instead of a city trip report, I can write a home one. And instead of room service, there’s Doordash, Postmates, and UberEats.
Loyalty programs will need their program members again soon. These are the people who can be incentivized to fill seats and rooms. They’re the ones who will either be chased away by a program which treats them poorly during this challenging time, or lured away by a program who treats them well.
So I think it’s especially notable which programs are still expiring their members’ miles.
About a week and a half ago I wrote that if you must travel now, you should consider turning down the first class upgrade. There’s not much service or food to speak of, so you really just get a bigger seat. But first class is more full than coach. You’ll be more comfortable – and more socially distanced – by sitting in back and spreading out in your own row.
American Airlines has basically taken this approach and made it mandatory for their employees who as traveling as non-revenue passengers. “Nonrevs” can no longer fly first class on narrowbody aircraft.
United is extending everyone’s current elite status through January 31, 2021 and extending club memberships by 6 months as well as extending PlusPoints upgrades by 6 months that were set to expire through January 31, 2021.
They are also dropping requirements to earn status by 50%.
On Sunday I wrote that American Airlines was operating more flights out of Newark airport than United Airlines. That seemed insane, considering United’s major hub at the airport. With the coronavirus crisis limiting air travel generally, and the New York area the current epicenter of fighting the virus in the United States, continuing to operate even 15 flights from Newark hardly seemed to make sense for American.
It seems the Dallas-based carrier realizes this, and has pulled down its schedule from the three major U.S. airports to just 13 flights in total from April 7 through May 6.
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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 »
