Video from Chinese social media platform Weibo shows an Airbus A320, being transported by truck, getting stuck underneath a pedestrian bridge near Harbin, in northeastern China.
The truck driver deflated the truck’s tires in order to dislodge the plane and get past the bridge, and then re-inflated the tires them shortly after.
The Points Guy ran a love letter to American Airlines a piece laying out the case why it’s good for airlines to get rid of seat back entertainment. Each of their arguments is wrong.
What’s more, streaming content has its problems. Customers may be required to watch through the carrier’s app, but aren’t always clearly told to download it until it’s too late in the air. Airlines haven’t always invested in the same up to date content for streaming as seat back (I’m looking at you, American). And what happens if the U.S. government brings back an electronics ban?
The underlying issue isn’t “will Southwest Airlines try to buy another airline” it’s “how does Southwest Airlines grow without the Boeing 737 MAX in service and continued production?” And if Southwest isn’t in a position to grow its business, it can’t command the historically high price-earnings multiple it’s enjoyed relative to peers in the U.S. airline industry.
Mergers are costly. They rarely generate the promised benefits. They involve combining IT systems, fleets, unionized work forces, and company cultures. They’re fraught with risk. Southwest Airlines needs the MAX to be flying again soon, and likely to act on a plan to diversify its fleet (with the attenuated costs and complexity that brings) — potentially with Embraer E2 jets.
Airlines fight tooth and nail to operate on time. When they’re lucky they push back a few minutes early. It isn’t often you see flights leaving 5 to 7 hours before they’re scheduled to depart. However a unique situation in Santiago, Chile is causing American Airlines to leave that much earlier than planned.
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Are these recent reports from American Airlines international first class really that surprising, when there’s so little emphasis on what service delivery for premium customers looks like at American?
Club Premier is 49% owned by Aimia, the company that spun off Air Canada’s Aeroplan, lost 80% of its market value when Air Canada announced its intention to start a competing program, and then sold the program back to the airline. Aimia has the demonstrated capability to run a good operation. In this case however they are part of one of the worst frequent flyer programs.
British Airways flight crew have a reputation for being some of the rowdiest in the world, and ‘things to tend to happen’ during Singapore layovers (Johannesburg, Las Vegas, Bangkok, and Nairobi are also well known trouble spots).
Over the summer it was a game of naked spin the bottle that got out of hand in Singapore. Two years ago it was crew running naked through hotel corridors, stealing fish.
Now during a Singapore layover “[s]ome of the crew got plastered, allegedly using drinks smuggled off the BA in-flight trolley” and this led to an altercation in the lobby and a suspension.
American Express Membership Rewards is offering a 25% bonus on transfers to Air France KLM Flying Blue through November 30. You’ll need to log into your American Express account to see the bonus (otherwise it’ll show with the standard 1:1 transfer ratio).
I find that Air France’s availability and award pricing is very attractive for US-Europe flying.
I criticize many of the decisions that American Airlines leadership have made. They’ve managed to anger shareholders, employees, and customers alike. While racking up more debt and worse operating statistics than competitors they’ve also re-started their project to degrade the domestic product.
There’s one area though that they’ve performed at an outstanding level.
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 »
