This morning’s computer outage at United caused delays for about 5000 flights. With planes out of position, and some crew likely to hit maximum duty hours, the effects will last through tomorrow.
…This morning I told the Associated Press‘ Scott Mayerowitz,
“We don’t know everything behind this morning’s issues yet, but today’s incident underscores the sense that something is very wrong at United,” said Gary Leff, co-founder of frequent-flier website MilePoint.
A collection of the most interesting links you’ll want to see, many you’ll want to click.
Ryanair is sooooo 2009. They’ve just launched a Facebook page and they have a promotion where they’ll put the names and faces of 30 people on 30 of their planes.
It can’t hurt to enter, and could be fun to play with their Facebook feature where you can download a plane with you on it as well.
Air France KLM’s Flying Blue has increased the cost of its ‘flex awards’ in business and first class by 25% without advance notice.
The changes to the cost of extra availability awards were effective July 1, the same date those changes were published online, and only apply to premium cabin awards. The price of economy awards and the price of premium cabin saver awards stay the same at this time.
US Airways pioneered the ‘reverse herringbone’ business class seat, which is one of the best in the sky. As a result their business class hard product on Airbus A330s is really up there compared to some of the best airlines in the world. Cathay Pacific, EVA Air, and American among others have followed suit with their own versions of the seat.
And US Airways has unprecedented international upgrade availability right now. I don’t expect it to last.
Resort fees are offensive. They are not optional charges, so they are part of the room rate. Not including them in the room rate is disingenuous.
Consumers and the government get up in arms and regulate over airfare displays when already those are pretty clear and clean, it’s hotels where the worst behavior happens.
But the Federal Government has just said they’re perfectly legal.
Last month I wrote about the man who had his life savings confiscated at the airport because his carry on bag smelled like pot.
There were over 90 seizures alone at the Cincinnati airport in 2013 where this happened. So the seizure of $44,000 from a nail salon owner at New York JFK shouldn’t be surprising.
The salon owner, who says he “has never used, bought, or sold illegal drugs” saved the money over two decades and was bringing it to California to load to his two brothers there.
A collection of the most interesting links you’ll want to see, many you’ll want to click.
I recently asked readers for questions and I’ve been working through several with standalone posts.
There were also questions with fairly straightforward answers, and so I thought I would combine a few of them into a single post.
In 1998 a United DC-10 made an emergency landing at Washington’s National airport. It was a Chicago – Baltimore flight that was first diverted to Dulles (after being held over Cleveland) and then to National due to weather. It was low on fuel, had 300 passengers on board, and had little choice but to make the landing. Emergency equipment deployed to the airport’s longest ~ 7000 foot runway.
I remember at the time being surprised that National was the diversion airport given the airport’s postage stamp size and short runways. Widebodies don’t normally operate there. Indeed, I wondered as well how they were going to manage getting the plane out of National, though presumably that was done with minimum fuel (and passengers offloaded, and bused to Baltimore).
That’s why I was surprised to see what I understand is a Vietnam Airlines 787-9 intentionally fly from Washington Dulles to National airport this morning.
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 »
