>Here’s an interesting opportunity. South American mega-carrier LATAM flies to Easter Island. Easter Island is a Chilean territory, so LATAM Chile operates from Santiago.
Once a week on Mondays, though that Boeing 787 continues on from Easter Isand to Tahiti and returns to Easter Island on Tuesday. And award availability on that flight is really good.
About six weeks ago Garmin introduced a new auto land feature for private aircraft. It senses when a pilot is non-responsive, and it can be easily activated by passengers. It finds the nearest appropriate airport, communicates with air traffic control and lands the plane on its own.
Most aviation accidents in the U.S. involve light aircraft. An average of three times a year a private pilot becomes incapacitated while flying. This looks like a game changer for worst case scenario events.
Eight months ago American Airlines Senior Vice President Kurt Stache spoke publicly about the airline’s lack of brand purpose and work they’d done to try to get clarity on who they are and what they’re trying to be.
There’s a new tag line in American’s holiday commercial…
American Airlines President Robert Isom hosted a meeting separately with pilots and with flight attendants updating employees on the 737 MAX. At the final ‘Crew News’ employee forum of the year they walked through Boeing’s changes to the MCAS system in anticipation of the aircraft’s return to service. They’re confident in the fix to the underlying issue that occurred in both the Lion Air and Ethiopian disasters.
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.
For many of you French Polynesia is about the destination and not how you get there. But a whole new way of getting there has been opened up to AAdvantage members. Up until now there’s been no competition for premium economy award space – it was available only to Club Tiare members. We’ll see how long availability remains this good now that so many more people can book it.
My Tuesday flights already posted to my American AAdvantage account when I checked Tuesday evening. I didn’t wait until the morning to look because these flights would put me over 100,000 miles for the year. Other readers have confirmed that they’re also seeing miles posting right after flight.
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.
Ultimately very few people go to the airport just for the restaurants — except maybe Tortas Frontera sandwiches at O’Hare — and most people probably won’t know about this sort of option. It does mean incremental revenue for businesses and the airport, and convenience for customers.
With major US airlines and American Express lounges moving to require a same day departing boarding pass for admittance it’s unlikely to lead to greater crowding of lounges or greater costs for rail drinks.
Marriott did not deny that the 10 elite nights for any event benefit is changing, although it’s not clear when or what the change will be (they simply promise to tell us if they make changes).
My read is this: if you want to take advantage of this opportunity in 2020 it might be a good idea to do it early in the year.
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 »
