there’s now something new to add to the ‘avoid’ list: flights operated by American Airlines’ Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft. So far they only have two of these planes. MAXs will be based out of Miami however not exclusively. They’ve ordered a total of 100.
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.
Last night Delta began charging 86,000 miles each way for business class awards between the US and Europe on Delta’s own planes. What’s bizarre — aside from the 23% no notice increase — is that it meant Delta flights were more expensive (by 1000 miles) than flights on partners.
They’ve already rolled back this change.
If you’re on a plane, though, you need to turn off your wireless transmitting devices (use airplane mode) once the door closes, and not name your network “ISIS” or “al Qaeda”.
A Turkish Airlines flight from Nairobi to Istanbul today when a passenger had a wifi network on called “bomb on board”.
Every few months SkyMiles become worth less and less. In 2009 I started calling them SkyPesos but SkyMiles VP Sandeep Dube is making a run at Nicolás Maduro. For now though one SkyMiles remains worth more than a single bolívar. We’ll see if that lasts.
Tamika Mallory, co-founder of the Womens March, was headed to Al Sharpton’s daughter’s wedding on American Airlines. She apparently had her seat changed on her by a gate agent and reportedly responded by “screeming f-bombs at the staff in front of kids’. She wasn’t permitted to fly, and took to social media to decry American Airlines racism.
The NAACP followed up by issuing a ‘travel advisory’ regarding American Airlines about a week later.
American managed to schedule flights for Christmas with no pilots. And their costly solution — if indeed it solves the problem — is to pay pilots more to work.
It should come as no surprise then that about 12 hours ago American started looking for a new Director of Crew Scheduling, someone to help sort out their mess.
An IT glitch gave too many American Airlines pilots Christmas off so the airline has been offering time and a half to anyone with an accidental vacation who’ll pick up a shift.
That’s gotten huge media play over the last 24 hours, with concern that plenty of Christmas flights would be cancelled.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s sister wrote to Alaska Airlines yesterday about sexual harassment on board.
They offered to re-seat her, but she refused, saying “Why should I have to move? I am the one that is being harassed!”
American’s new coach seat isn’t worse than the worst coach seat out there now. But the worst coach seat out there now is a problem. Take away the seat back TV from many existing American Airlines aircraft, shrink the lavatory, and reduce the room offered even in Main Cabin Extra and first class and you have an across-the-board reduction in customer value.
Telling passengers that they should get a new job if they can’t pay American Airlines more money seems strange when the passenger can keep their current job and fly the largest domestic passenger airline instead.
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 »
