Airlines have been trying to goose lagging stocks with share buybacks. Fundamentally airline stocks haven’t performed because there’s little chance of significant profit growth and spending cash to retire shares underscores that: it suggests that there’s no more profitable investment in front of the business, which suggests it’s not a strong growth play.
British Airways is looking to automate its service by getting passengers to swallow a pill that will communicate your needs to their crew.
The idea is to adapt technology currently in use in hospitals which, for instance, monitors whether patients take their pills so that cabin crew can stay up to speed with everyone onboard. This seems to go to great lengths to make sure customers don’t press the flight attendant call button.
American is temporarily re-branding their existing Flagship lounges as International First Class lounges as it prepares to introduce brand new business and first class Flagship Lounges in the coming months.
That’s because these new Flagship Lounges are going to be a new concept, rolled out as renovations to existing lounges and new builds are completed starting this spring. We’re going to see New York JFK opening first in a few months, followed by LAX by mid-year.
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.
Up until now if you wanted to redeem GarudaMiles for travel on their own flights you had to endure “award redemption in six easy steps.” Roughly speaking Garuda Indonesia’s frequent flyer program thought it was Korean. North Korean.
For all intents and purposes the introduction of online redemption makes Garuda Indonesia an actual partner of Citi ThankYou Rewards, not merely a theoretical one.
US airlines haven’t offered premium economy products on their own flights. American’s new premium economy, launched on the Boeing 787-9, is the first.
US airline frequent flyer programs haven’t offered the option for redeeming miles for premium economy.
Interestingly Delta SkyMiles is the first of the major US frequent flyer programs to offer premium economy redemption.
Elaine Chao, former Labor Secretary and former Deputy Secretary of Transportation, will apparently be nominated to become Secretary of Transportation.
She’s also former President of the United Way and a former board member of Northwest Airlines. Prior service at DOT includes a stint as deputy administrator of Maritime Administration.
United’s new business class Polaris soft product goes live December 1 and I spoke with Maria Walter, Managing Director of Product and Brand Strategy, about the roll out.
She emphasized how they’re viewing Polaris as more than just the seat. It’s the onboard service, food and amenities as well as lounges on the ground as well.
Yesterday a passenger on United’s flight UA1892 from New Orleans to Houston pulled the emergency exit door over the wing of the Boeing 737 on arrival and jumped out.
Apparently the flight’s early arrival meant it didn’t have a gate open.
When Marriott acquired Starwood, plenty of commentators started to wonder about the future of several of Starwood’s brands. After all, many of them are small — Starwood wasn’t growing as quickly as investors would have liked, hence the selloff in the first place.
And clearly many of the brands are duplicative with Marriott’s brands. Not all of the brands perform well in their niche for instance Four Points. Even with Starwood’s Sheraton revival plan the Sheraton brand remains a bit of a mess.
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 »
