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.
American’s new Boeing 737 MAX interior has seats with less space between them than ever before, less recline, and no seat back entertainment. They are installing satellite wifi and bigger overhead bins, but to squeeze in even more seats — they’ve gone from 150 seats to 172 seats on this size aircraft in just four years — they’re shrinking the bathrooms onboard.
One American Airlines pilot describes these lavatories as the most miserable experience in the world. He says he’ll refuse to deadhead on the aircraft to get to his duty assignment.
Back in the fall Priority Pass added access to the Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse at LAX. That seemed fantastic, and it is — finally a Priority Pass-accessible lounge at LAX terminal 2. However it wasn’t exciting as it seemed at first blush. Hours are limited to when Virgin Atlantic’s own passengers aren’t there. Initially the LAX lounge was open 5 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. That’s been cut back to 10:45 a.m. Since they’re not servicing Virgin’s customers they don’t offer the extensive food service Virgin customers are used to. Credit: Virgin Atlantic Credit: Virgin Atlantic They’ve apparently extended the model of generating revenue for otherwise-unused lounge space, getting Virgin Atlantic lounges to open earlier in exchange for that sweet, sweet bank cash funneled through Collinson Group. Priority Pass cardmembers now have access to Virgin Atlantic Clubhouses…
American Airlines is already a lot stricter with same day confirmed changes than their competitors are.
Consistent with the American’s overall move to limit agent flexibility they’ve changed how reservations agents process same day standby.
There is no de jure change here, but a de facto change in what reservations agents will be able to do for customers. They’ll no longer be able to ignore other business rules when E inventory is available
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum of Dubai arrived in Saudi Arabia with plans to discuss an aid package for Jordan. He made a roughly 1000 mile journey.
And like the King of Saudi Arabia, he used an escalator for getting on and off the aircraft.
American Airlines is offering premium economy from $994 roundtrip between San Francisco and Hong Kong. That’s an amazing fare for not coach. It’s also broadly available.
Capital One just added TSA PreCheck or Global Entry reimbursement to the Capital One® Venture® Rewards Credit Card.
It’s not the first card to offer this of course but it’s another benefit for an already strong rewards card. And it’s the second new benefit already added this year. That’s important because they’re improving the value proposition on the card while several other cards are seeing things taken away.
Air travel emits carbon dioxide. More demand for air travel supports more flights, and thus more carbon dioxide emissions.
While the interaction of emissions and temperature change is complex, the particular mechanisms subject to debate amongst scientists, a simple model suggests that your air travel is bad for the environment. But it simply isn’t true that every airline passenger and every ticket has the same contribution to emissions.
And we do know whether you have a high – or an exceptionally low – probability of affecting the number of flights, size of aircraft, and thus emissions.
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.
Jill Surdek, American’s Vice President – Flight Service, updated crew on several projects underway and on several tweaks to the airline’s onboard service.
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 »
