I wrote the other day in a Forbes.com piece about a bit of a feud between American Airlines and United over the best approach to the environment, the CEO of American calling out United’s biofuel efforts as being largely meaningless compared to American’s investment of newer, more modern and fuel efficient aircraft.
It turns out Parker is right on the science.
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.
August 14 Singapore Airlines made a huge change to the ability to waitlist for award tickets. All wait list requests are cancelled 14 days prior to travel. There are no more last minute wait lists.
Singapore says the new rules ‘promote certainty’ and that’s certainly true. You know you cannot clear a wait list close to departure, because Singapore won’t allow it.
But why did they make this change?
Which machine can claim to be the first modern ‘ATM’ is somewhat disputed, but certainly the modern cash dispensing ATM in the U.S., manufactured by Docutel, began 50 years ago today at Chemical Bank in Rockville Center, New York. An ad read, “On Sept. 2, our bank will open at 9:00 and never close again!”
In the second quarter American Airlines wrote down the value of its investment in China Southern airlines. In response to a question about financials, the airline told employees “Non-operating special items principally included $52 million of mark-to-market net unrealized losses primarily associated with the company’s equity investment in China Southern Airlines.” $52 million would equate to 26% of the original $200 million investment in China Southern made just two years earlier.
We all know (or should know!) not to stick our hands down inside seat back pockets. Those are bigger germ farms than the monkey in Outbreak. All seats have them though, usually even bulkhead seats. So those seat back pockets don’t differentiate one seat from another.
The question is, if you want to avoid the plague, which seats are the most infected on an aircraft? Which ones do you want to avoid?
The airline is beloved, though much of the credit they get is based on past efforts. JetBlue isn’t nearly as good as it once was, they even led last year’s checked bag fee increase. They’ve squeezed seats, just not as much as American, Delta, and United. And their Achilles heel is operational reliability,
Six new cost cuts continue the multi-year quest to become merely ‘a little less bad’ than competitors continues apace.
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.
A man who ate free for a year buying a refundable ticket, accessing the China Eastern lounge in Xi’an, China, and the refunding his ticket. Every. Day. There can be consequences to this scam: Lufthansa sued a passenger and won 200 euros after the man booked and cancelled 36 tickets in a year for the purpose of obtaining business class lounge access.
Another passenger was even arrested after living in 9 different Priority Pass lounges at the Singapore airport over the course of 3 weeks.
The federal Third Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that lawsuits are permitted for abusive searches under the Federal Tort Claims Act. An en banc panel of the court decided 9-4 that TSA security checkpoint employees are “officers or employees” of the federal government and that they “execute searches.” The TSA for its part claims not to search passengers, only to ‘screen’ them.
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 »
