United Express flight 3705 from Newark to Kansas City arrived 32 minutes early on Christmas Day. But that wasn’t the most remarkable thing about the flight. Republic Airways captain Joseph Tar Schmidt serenaded passengers on the flight prior to departure.
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.
In the fall an Airbus A320 got stuck under a bridge in Harbin, China. The quick thinking truck driver carrying the plane managed to break it free by deflating his tires.
Now images of a plane getting stuck in Durgapur, West Bengal, India are going viral and deflating the tires wasn’t enough. Officials were called in and they “had to get rid of the tyres” in order to free the plane and get the truck moving again. It had to be “pushed out with the help of another truck.”
Two of the most innovative companies in the world are Google and Amazon. They’re impressive in similar ways. They’ve built capabilities, scaled them, and used their new internal capacity to compete aggressively in adjacent industries. No one can touch what Google has done in artificial intelligence at scale. They built and effectively managed large scale data storage, and branched out to manage web services for other companies (Google Cloud). They used the data storage and search capability to offer e-mail, which they scan to learn tremendous amounts about their customers. When I receive an email with travel plans, Google knows where I’m going. They know where I have dinner reservations, too, and tell me when I should to make it to a restaurant on time. They’re embedded in my phone through its operating system, and…
I used to get in taxis all the time in New York. But before the driver would let me in he’d (and it was always a he) roll down the window and ask where I was going. He didn’t want a ride in the opposite direction of where he wanted to go, and he certainly didn’t want to drive into an ‘undesirable’ (minority) neighborhood. That’s illegal, but the practice was commonplace.
Uber and other rideshare companies changed all that. You enter where you’re going in an app, the driver accepts the ride, but doesn’t learn the destination until you’re in the car and on the way – and they can be penalized for cancelling rides.
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.
Tired: Hotels ‘for millennials’ featuring tiny rooms that lack desks, where hopefully guests escape claustrophobia to ‘social spaces’ spending money on food and beverage. However millennials as a class don’t have as much disposable income as older generations, and their digital life includes ordering in more interesting food and beverage than the hotel provides.
Wired: Hotels catering to the ‘new affluent’ who prefer experiences over things, so don’t mind small rooms and are sufficiently lacking in experience that they’ll allow the hotel to curate their food and beverage choices in those same ‘social spaces’.
American only just introduced online redemption of Etihad awards in May and it was a surprise to see at the time, since American has been in a political war with those two airlines, despite their partnerships, for the past four and a half years – and even terminated codeshares with both. I’m glad to see American continuing to invest in getting online redemption for Etihad and Qatar right.
In the echo chamber of the American Airlines C-Suite no one can hear the passengers scream. That’s why, after a horrible 2019 operationally and financially, the American Airlines strategy is to stay focused on doing the exact same things.
Emirates President Sir Tim Clark will leave the role in June and remain as an advisor. He’ll have been with the airline for 35 years, having joined the Dubai-based carrier as part of its founding in 1985. He initially served as the carrier’s head of planning and became airline President in 2003.
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 »
