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.
Yesterday American Airlines sent end of year review emails. I wrote about how few miles I earned from flying 100,000 miles and how scarce complimentary upgrades have become for someone like me. The airline encouraged members to share their activity via social media, embedding links to do so.
Members who took them up on this also posted their frequent flyer number and e-mail address. Oops. American is now telling members they need to delete those posts and monitor their accounts in case all their miles are stolen.
A report from Denmark’s Danske Bank says that Norwegian Air, the largest of the transatlantic discounters, could breach conditions of its debt if it doesn’t raise fresh capital by the end of the year.
Low cost transatlantic competitors Wow Air is teetering, and Primera has gone out of business. Norwegian operates both long haul and within Europe and is struggling through the most challenging time of year for a carrier in this hemisphere. How that will change the airline going forward remains to be seen.
Years later when I started traveling for work midweek transcons in coach were nearly $2000 round trip The idea of paying for first was beyond my comprehension.
The cost of coach trips has come down, and in percentage terms the cost of flying first has come down even more. Part of that is a change in airline pricing philosophy, and part is a change in technology. Instead of just having full fare first class and possibly a discount fare bucket, airlines can price first as a specific upcharge to the prevailing coach rate.
That’s helped them sell more seats up front — Delta sells about 60% of its first class seats, American is closer to 50%. It used to be more like one in ten.
It isn’t Italy’s subsidies for Alitalia that Delta is complaining about. Since Delta benefits from an anti-trust immunized revenue-sharing joint venture with Alitalia, those subsidies are met with silence.
Instead Delta’s CEO has an op-ed this morning complaining about the smaller Air Italy which is 49% owned by Qatar Airways. And since he has no legitimate complaint that Air Italy, or Qatar, is acting against US law or policy he has to resort to deceptive and disingenuous claims in calling for “the Trump Administration to examine this situation and send a strong message to the Qatari government.”
Ken Wimberly, who describes himself as Chief Visionary Officer for a commercial real estate firm in the Dallas area, says he’ll never fly American Airlines again.
He usually flies Southwest. He wanted first class tickets for his family of five, so he bought them from American. Then he needed to change the travel date for one member of the family.
American Airlines just sent me a ‘year in review’ and it tells me everything I need to know about the value of Executive Platinum status. I’ve just requalified with a flight where I sat in the last row of coach, and it’s time to ponder the value I get out of my elite relationship going forward.
A 21 year old woman flying from Libreville, Congo to San Francisco via Istanbul on Turkish Airlines gave birth to a son she calls Bennel during her first flight segment this month. Her husband – who is a doctor – delivered the baby three hours into the flight.
There were 144 passengers on board when the plane took off, and 145 when it landed. The rear of the aircraft was cleared to become a “makeshift delivery suite.”
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. With Republicans in control of the US House of Representatives they had Bill Shuster (R-Airlines for America) to do their bidding. He was dating a top lobbyist from the airline industry. His Chief of Staff was married to another top airline industry lobbyist. And he hired an airline industry lobbyist to run the Transportation Committee.
Now with Democrats regaining control of the House Pete DeFazio of Oregon isn’t missing a beat.
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.
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 »
