American Airlines Cancels Transatlantic Flight Due to Drunk Pilot, Everyone Entitled to Over $500 Apiece

by Gary Leff

pilot cockpit
Feb 07 2019

Confronted with proof that American Airlines does, in fact, offer predeparture beverages up front a spokesperson says “Safety is our highest priority and we apologise to our customers for the disruption to their travel plans, we have rebooked them on alternative flights.”

I asked what was being done for customers and was told that everyone on the flight is being offered 15,000 miles. Of course that is separate from the compensation that passengers are entitled to under EU Regulation 261/2004.

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Grand Hyatt New York Will Be Torn Down

by Gary Leff

Feb 07 2019

The best thing about the property is that it’s often available less expensively than other full service properties in the area. Indeed searching for a room later in the month it was pricing at $171. The second best thing is the club lounge which features a large outdoor seating area.

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American Gets to Keep Its Authority to Fly to China — Without Actually Flying to China

by Gary Leff

china memorial
Feb 07 2019

There’s no Open Skies agreement between the U.S. and China. Instead a bilateral agreement lays out what route authorities can be doled out by respective governments. American Airlines dropped Chicago – Beijing and Chicago – Shanghai and Hawaiian Airlines dropped Honolulu – Beijing. American would like to keep their route authority from Chicago to China even while not using it. That would mean preventing any other U.S. airlines from adding China frequencies, which benefits American by avoiding competition for its Dallas and Los Angeles to Beijing and Shanghai service. So they asked the Department of Transportation to grant a ‘dormancy’ of their authority to keep the routes for a year without flying them. Normally they would lose the routes after 90 days. The odds that they’ll return to flying from Chicago to China are really,…

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Delta Apologizes For Creepy Inflight Napkins

by Gary Leff

Feb 06 2019

Delta serves Coke products because Atlanta, and their napkins advertise Coke products because money. Ads try to be clever to get your attention so they aren’t ignored, in order to get better value for that money.

However the napkins Delta was boarding last month didn’t go over well. They encouraged passengers to give fellow travelers unsolicited phone numbers in hopes of… well, you know what it’s in hopes of.

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Hilton’s New Tool Tells You How Many Points Hotel Rewards Should Cost

by Gary Leff

Feb 06 2019

Hilton’s basic program is the least rewarding for spending at hotels and elite benefits are weak. They do not promise Diamonds upgrades to suites even if they’re empty, and they do not promise late check-out requests will be honored. Where Hilton Honors is useful is for the occasional guest who can get status just by having a credit card. There’s some chance this could change since they’re testing a confirmed suite upgrade benefit with some Diamonds, my hunch is if they launch it that holding a credit card alone won’t be enough to have this benefit. One of the most irritating things about Hilton Honors is its lack of transparency. They eliminated their award charts. Here’s what they published just a couple of years ago: Five years ago they effectively killed charts when they introduced…

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United Adding Tons of Premium Seats to Airbus Narrowbodies, 767s, and New “CRJ-550”

by Gary Leff

people in airplane aisle
Feb 06 2019

United has been moving towards a premium-heavy strategy. The offer more international business class seats than peers using similar aircraft, and they’ve invested in really nice international business class lounges. Their Polaris business class seat allows them to do this because it gives them a fully flat product with direct aisle access without taking up more space in the cabin than their old six-abreast seats. It’s a “good enough” seat that isn’t quite as nice as American’s B/E Aerospace Super Diamond or Delta’s new Suites, but that doesn’t require actively avoiding flying business class on United. United has announced a doubling down on the premium heavy approach adding even more business class seats to a subfleet of 767-300s, as well as adding first class seats to Airbus A319 and A320s where they’ve had fewer seats…

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