I FOIA’d the airport for correspondence with airlines and potential other lounge operators to see what interest there is, matching the airport’s internal plans that I was first to reveal. Here is their responsive material.
United Airlines passengers were greeted with a stark message on their seat back entertainment screens when they boarded a recent flight to Chicago O’Hare. The airline’s message to its customers: BITE ME, or rather every seat back screen showed the greeting: “Welcome aboard flight BITEME1 to Chicago.”
Marriott is eliminating single use plastics when it saves them money toiletries, but they’re placing larger plastic bottles of water that have been shipped using fossil fuels from literally Fiji in every room because those sell for $9. You didn’t believe any of this was really about the environment though, did you?
I was through Philadelphia on a domestic itinerary, so I decided to redeem a Flagship Lounge single visit pass at the new Flagship lounge there to see what American had launched first-hand over in terminal A West between gates 15 and 16.
Chase’s Phoenix airport lounge will begin taking reservations starting June 23. This is their smallest club at 3,500 square feet and regularly has 30 – 60 minute waits to get in, even with many cardmembers not bothering to try given the crowding and the wait.
Recently, Hilton set standard fees for late checkout. The goal is to upsell guests – including elite guests – for something that used to be offered to all Honors members for free. Increasingly, the free benefit for elites is disappearing from Hilton’s promotional materials, too.
A drunk United Airlines passenger decided to ‘self-deport’ from their flight prior to pushback, when flight attendants wouldn’t serve him a predeparture cocktail.
Frontier Airlines tied to remove a miscreant passenger from a flight heading to Florida, only he wouldn’t go. That delayed the flight and all of the passengers on it. One woman wasn’t having that – and she decided to take it upon herself to eject the man. She got up in the aisle and confronted him, telling him – in the foulest language imaginable – that he needed to get off the plane because he was holding everyone up.
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.
Opening the interview, Crandall shared how he got into the airline business (at TWA in 1966). His wife thought that if someone was going to pay him more money, and it was going to mean she could jet off to Rome, that was a good thing. Crandall eventually became President of American in 1980 and CEO from 1985 – 1998.
Here are the 3 things I found most interesting from the interview.
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 »
