Four Delta Air Lines passengers were removed from a flight in Minneapolis on January 8 because a flight attendant determined it was suspicious that they were Palestinian Americans. They were taken off of the plane on arrival and questioned for an hour before being released. Two of the passengers missed their connecting flights. Apparently they were guilty of “speaking in Arabic and English and wearing Palestine necklaces.”
During Friday’s Delta Air Lines earnings call, the Wall Street Journal‘s Aly Sider asked CEO Ed Bastian if he “think[s] Delta still has the same advantage over rivals just in terms of reliability in its operation?”
Bastian acknowledged that the rest of the industry has caught up.
A Lufthansa Airbus A340 widebody had its tow bar separate from the aircraft while pushing back from the gate in Munich, Germany. The tug loses control of the plane, and the pilots are rolling backward – unable to see behind them.
A woman had her hair draped over her seat back, so that it covered the entertainment screen behind her. The man’s daughter, seated behind her, couldn’t watch her inflight TV. The dad got creepy on board the flight home from Mexico to put the female passenger in her place, and I’m trying to decide whether it was a genius move or crossed a line.
On Tuesday a Delta Air Lines passenger was arrested in Austin “for allegedly making a terroristic threat.”
The man was onboard a flight headed for Atlanta. A flight attendant “asked him to move his briefcase,” and she reported to the captain that he said the briefcase might contain one of three things: “money, a bomb or a gun.”
A young family with their 5-month-old baby, Romey, encountered a heartwarming surprise. Kelly Levine, Romey’s mother, was apprehensive about traveling with a baby, fearing her daughter’s fussiness might disturb other passengers. It was the baby’s second flight. The first had happened only the week before, heading from Newark to Cabo. Now they were headed home.
Finnair business class, Los Angeles – Helsinki, is available via Iberia (a transfer partner of many programs) for just 4,650 points one way.
The FAA has warned parents over holding lap infants on planes in light of the Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9 door plug incident. Had a parent been sitting near the hole that opened in the plane’s fuselage, the child could have been ripped from their arms. The MAX 9 debacle may be used in a push to ban lap infants, requiring parents to buy tickets for their children under two years of age, something that the head of the largest flight attendants union has been calling for for years.
And that’s a bit of a strange concern!
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Last year a billboard appeared along Interstate 35 near Fort Worth highlighting website SouthWoke.com calling on Southwest Airlines to ‘shut up’ about liberal politics and focus on flying.
So it’s no surprise that when Southwest tweeted a photo of an all-female flight crew, writing “Go off, queens!” people reacted.
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 »
