United failed to open a single Polaris business class lounge in 2017. As American opened four of its own business lounges between June and December, United was left only with its first Chicago outpost.
At the end of the year the airline even removed the timetable for Polaris lounge openings.
When Hyatt hired Mark Vondrasek – formerly of Starwood – as Senior Vice President for loyalty and business platforms it was announced he would circumvent the CMO and report directly to the CEO. At the time I noted how unique that was.
Though Hyatt tried to dissuade me of the significance that their head of loyalty wouldn’t report to the Chief Marketing Officer the handwriting seemed to be there.
Pilots aren’t supposed to let attractive passengers join them up front. Even when the passenger is a porn star. Or a Playboy Bunny. They’re supposed to fly the plane not film flight attendants having sex, look at porn in the cockpit, or check Facebook. Let alone this.
But what they do on the ground when not in class doesn’t concern me so much. As long as they pay attention in the cockpits of Aeroflot and S7 this doesn’t bother me.
Etihad has been on a crash course lately to stop the bleeding from unprofitable airline investments, cut costs, and monetize premium services where they can.
Now they’re selling Residence lounge access at New York JFK even though Etihad offers double-daily A380 service between New York and Abu Dhabi.
This week was the anniversary of the US Airways 1549 ‘Miracle on the Hudson’. When imagining a plane full of passengers bracing for impact it’s hard not to think about the scene inside that plane from Sully whose dramatization of that flight made the entire movie.
Yesterday an American Airlines flight from Phoenix to Dallas Fort-Worth operated by a Mesa CRJ-900 made an emergency landing and video from inside the cabin of passengers being told to brace and preparing to evacuate is incredible.
Airbus has been telling anyone that would listen that if Emirates didn’t place a new A380 order they’d shut down the program. The plane would enter a death spiral. Without an ongoing program for the aircraft, the value of the Emirates fleet would drop and replacement parts for the aircraft would become harder to get.
Emirates placed an order for 36 more Airbus A380s adding to the 101 currently in their fleet and the 41 already on order. That will bring their total A380 fleet to 178 — if they take delivery of all the aircraft.
China is beginning to liberalize in much the same way the US did 40 years ago.
In 1976 – two years prior to deregulation – the Civil Aeronautics Board ‘experimented with price competition’. China is doing that, allowing airlines to set their own prices on about 300 routes: “domestic routes that have at least five carriers competing.”
American Airlines keeps playing Delta’s ‘greater fool’. The biggest move was giving up their reach into India and the surrounding region, tricked by Delta. in a play that helps Delta and no one else.
This time they’ve been put in check by Delta in China.
Pakistan International Airlines is the worst airline in the world. Best known for sacrificing a goat for safety and flying with more passengers than seats (and making customers stand for 1700 miles), the airline’s CEO was actually detained as a result of his efforts to provide good seats and service by wet leasing aircraft from SriLankan.
Over the weekend I wrote about problems with American’s Boeing 737 MAX and in particular “design flaws” with the lavatory. It was revealing to me that American Airlines CEO Doug Parker says he hasn’t flown on the controversial plane.
I shared this Q&A with an employee who described the 737 Max as “Mini.”
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 »
