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.
Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air was such a phenomenal movie for frequent travelers because as a top tier elite and mileage junkie himself he cared about getting so many of the details of life on the road right, and of course because he cast George Clooney in the lead role making airport security and hotel check-ins cool.
This is how we all see ourselves packing and cruising effortlessly through the airport…
Delta is running a European award sale for redemption starting with August travel and running through fall, starting at 20,000 miles roundtrip (and roundtrip travel is required). There are any number of eligible routes pricing between 20,000 and 38,000 miles roundtrip.
And no matter what all of the other blogs are saying, in many cases this isn’t even a very good deal.
The plot of Falling Down appears to re-create itself in Spanish, where a man is mad as hell and not going to take it anymore to borrow from another Hollywood classic. Is he frustrated by American Airlines? Raging against machines taking over simple tasks once employing people? Or frustrated by his own circumstance?
A man storms away from the desk at his gate, throws down the boarding group sign, where an American Airlines employee puts it back up. Meanwhile the passenger has taken off his shirt and allows his pants to sag. He grabs the reaches for the back of the employee’s neck. The employee goes about his business while the man rants in the gate area.
The U.S. airline industry was born in subsidy from the post office and American Airlines received a federal loan to pay for its first big aircraft order. The U.S. airline industry has more government involvement than most countries — the U.S. model where airports are owned and run by government agencies, and air traffic control is managed by the government is unusual.
Big U.S. airlines like Delta, American, and United have all benefited from major government subsidies, like moving pension obligations off their books and onto the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation in bankruptcy while retaining tax loss carry forwards so that they wouldn’t have to pay taxes once they started earning profits.
A many of the world’s airports it’s a long walk from check-in to the gate. Some of that delay is due to immigration and customs formalities, but at newer airports that also usually means walking through a maze designed to move you past as much high-end retail as possible. That’s because expensive retail generates big revenue for the airport.
Sometimes you start to think: there has to be a better way.
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.
Delta is moving to offer free inflight internet, matching JetBlue, and American has been explicit that an industry move in this direction could force them to do the same.
One of my most frequent and best uses of American AAdvantage miles over the past 7 years has been booking first class awards on Etihad. I’ve used them to fly to the Maldives four times, to India, to the Gulf region and from the Mideast to Australia to name just a few.
And they offer an excellent hard product in first class – on their Airbus A380 the ‘First Apartment’ with an on board shower.
American already eliminated their rule that basic economy passengers couldn’t bring on a full sized carry on bag. Now they’re making it easier for passengers on basic economy fares to get advance seat assignments – allowing paid seats 7 days prior to travel. And with bigger overhead bins, boarding last isn’t even a big deal anymore either.
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 »
