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.
The FAA had gone to off-the-street hiring to meet diversity goals but the problem was there weren’t enough training slots, and qualified controllers were being passed over when we need controllers. Whitaker’s approach lets the agency train controllers from a variety of backgrounds without sacrificing onboarding those that have gone through training privately already.
But what if New York TRACON refuses all new controllers to keep their overtime hours up?
American Airlines flight attendants want bigger raises than American is offering and they want retro pay back several years, like pilots (who have far more leverage).
So while the airline is holding its Investor Day on Monday afternoon, flight attendants will be holding a protest on Wall Street. The location is meant to symbolize investors, or something? Plus it’s New York, so maybe there will be media.
A ‘loophole’ is something that is expressly legal until it’s used in a way we dislike – or in this case, something that airline competitors and unions don’t like. The common connotation of loophole is some sort of mistake or drafting accident that’s being exploited.
However what JSX and others do by operating charter flights under FAA part 135, and selling individual seats on those flights under Part 380, is not actually a loophole. The linkage between parts 135 and 380 in regulations is actually intentional.
Southwest Airlines is known for going it alone. Part of their business model has largely been avoiding the cost and complexity of partnerships and of transferring bags to and from other airlines. But that may be about to change.
American had planned to fly Seattle to Bangalore and to Shanghai. Neither flight materialized. American isn’t even flying Seattle – London this winter. They aren’t operating long haul at all from Seattle. So it’s been a question mark whether Seattle would actually be a long haul city for American at all – whether their ‘L.A. replacement’ wasn’t one after all, and the airline would just shrink in the Pacific.
So I was surprised by the rumor – not necessarily endorsed – that aviation watchdog JonNYC passes along about the airline adding a flight attendant base in Seattle.
Violent gang attacks under the direction of Jimmy Cherizier (“Barbecue”) on Thursday near Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince, Haiti damaged several commercial aircraft while JetBlue took off, fortunately unscathed. American Airlines and Spirit Airlines cancelled their flights from Miami and Fort Lauderdale on Thursday.
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.
In a scoop broken first by aviation watchdog JonNYC, American Airlines is opening up a New York Boeing 787 pilot base. Basing 787 pilots in New York will allow the airline to operate that aircraft from New York JFK without deadheading pilots in from other cities. American Airlines has been flying all Boeing 777s on long haul international routes.
A Delta Air Lines passenger got stuck in the lavatory for 35 minutes on a flight from Salt Lake City to New Orleans recently, as flight attendants and a pilot struggle mightily to free him.
Lavatory man’s wife and two toddlers were waiting for him to return to his seat. She began to wonder what happened after five minutes. After ten minutes, their four year old became impatient for daddy. She overheard a flight attendant talking about a passenger being “stuck.”
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 »
