As American took the first 14 of their 24 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft out of service following President Trump’s grounding, planes were left sitting in Barbados, Cancun, Boston, Orlando, St. Croix, Tampa, Santo Domingo, Port of Spain, Santo Domingo, Miami and Puerto Plata.
The first 36 MAX flight cancellations affected schedules of 5500 passengers. Roughly speaking we’ll be looking at perhaps twice that many flights on an average day.
I’ve just written that I believe the FAA was reasonable not to ground the Boeing 737 MAX, and that doing so brings along its own safety risks. I wrote that I hoped that new data would be what guides any shift in position.
Minutes after writing that, though, President Trump announced a grounding of the aircraft type. It’s not obvious that there’s been any actual new information which has become available since the FAA resisting doing so. The only meaningful news item has been Canada’s decision to ground the plane, also based on no new material information.
I do generally trust the FAA, and the pilots operating these aircraft, to offer their best judgment here. Standing athwart regulators the world over who are taking the simple path (they’ll never get blamed for a car crash or incident on another aircraft type) isn’t easy.
I just hope that new data would be what guides any shift in position.
There’s a move afoot to end flights between Brussels and Amsterdam, because members of the Dutch government believe the flight is too short.
KLM currently runs 5 flights a day between the two cities.
Amsterdam and Brussels airports are about 125 miles apart if you’re driving, 98 miles by air.
In November American Airlines rolled out a schedule change — a plan to fly their Boeing 737 MAX to Brazil and to Bolivia swapping out Boeing 757s with lie flat business class for their new, least comfortable domestic aircraft. This was supposed to start in May.
I would love it if it were more possible to follow the facts and not the mob. We don’t yet know where the facts on the Ethiopian Airlines disaster will lead.
American Airlines pilots have come out in support of the 737 MAX. Contrary to the Chinese regulator’s lack of confidence in their pilots flying aircraft manually, they remain confident in their ability to operate the MAX, the performance of their planes has been exemplary, and their planes have a difference that they highlight from other MAX jets that may make them less vulnerable to mistaken Angle of Attack readings.
The Allied Pilots Association (APA), representing the 15,000 pilots of American Airlines, remains confident in the Boeing 737 Max and in our members’ ability to safely fly it.
The pilots for the world’s largest airline have the necessary training and experience to troubleshoot problems and take decisive actions on the flight deck to protect our passengers and crew.
It appears that SkyMiles is now charging 105,000 miles each way for transatlantic business class awards, up from 86,000 miles. That’s a 22% devaluation without notice on top of Delta’s already most-expensive saver awards compared to competitors, and a 50% increase in a year.
When Delta raised transatlantic prices to 86,000 miles just over a year ago they rolled back the increase briefly, before bumping it up again to 82,000 miles in June. So we don’t know if this new highest price will hold in the immediate term.
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.
The New York Times is reporting that Boeing’s CEO spoke to President Trump today and asked him not to ground the 737 MAX.
Meanwhile China’s Civil Aviation Administration Deputy Director offered pilot confidence and experience as a reason why it makes sense to ground the aircraft in Asia even though similar measures aren’t being taken in North America.
Apparently American Airlines is performing an evacuation test on their Airbus A321neo, which is required before they’re certified to fly it in revenue operations.
There’s controversy over whether today’s more densely packed planes — more seats, closer together, with higher load factors — can be evacuated that quickly under real world conditions, but I’ve argued that misses the point. Evacuation standards need to be so stringent in order to account for the delays that happen when frightened passengers actually leave the aircraft in real world stress.
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 »
