Around 1 p.m. Eastern this afternoon a United Express flight UA6122 experienced smoke in the cabin while taxiing for departure to Houston. The Mesa-operated Embraer regional jet stopped and crew deploy a slide.
Mesa Airlines appears to be ferrying another ERJ-175 over from Washington Dulles as United flight UA3232 to take passengers on to Houston.
Yesterday writing about Marriott’s new list of hotel redemption pricing that will go into effect in August I mentioned the new Marriott program starting August 1.
A Marriott spokesman e-mailed quickly to correct me to say we don’t know when the new award chart will start, because we don’t know when the new program starts. But that’s not what their website says.
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.
A couple flying from Labuan to Kuala Lumpur on Malaysia Airlines were waiting to take off when they looked out the window and saw their cat Scooty running on the tarmac.
There’s video of the incident and the cat is in the top left corner. While perhaps an optical illusion the cat seems to disappear into a drain. Airline staff came out from under the plane’s wing — carrying the cat’s empty cage, door open.
Marriott is apparently cracking down on people booking hotels that haven’t yet opened — speculatively, hoping for compensation when the opening date inevitably delays — and in particular warning people trying to do this while using credit cards “that will not authorize the forfeiture amount.”
Rather than temporarily disabling customer accounts, Marriott needs to fix its IT and better manage construction projects.
Qantas is notoriously stingy with award space. And US-Australia awards are notoriously tough to get. It’s a long flight, business class does sell, and increasingly airlines are putting smaller Boeing 787s on the route rather than planes that might have excess seats for sale. Getting to and from Australia during winter is even harder.
On Friday night an easyJet passenger on a delayed Paris – Mallorca flight headbutted a flight attendant. He was pinned to the ground, before being removed.
This all happened after four rowdy passengers had been removed from the flight. It’s the fifth one that “launched the attack.”
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.
United just launched non-stop Los Angeles – Singapore service at the end of October. They’ve been flying with a Boeing 787-9 using old business class seats.
United will be dropping Los Angeles – Singapore on that route’s one year anniversary, and adding a second San Francisco non-stop.
Last month I asked why people still collect SkyMiles. There has to be some limit to how much programs can devalue their currency.
Truly the only reason I care what Delta charges for awards is because other airline executives think people at Delta are smarter, and blindly copy what Delta does. And because higher Delta pricing may make those executives feel they have headroom in their own award pricing.
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 »
