Alaska Airlines originally offered to buy Hawaiian Airlines on August 9th, at $20 per share. The Hawaiian board wanted more money – in the $20s – even though the Alaska offer was already for double where the airline’s shares were trading.
However as Alaska dug into the details of what they’d be buying they discovered problems.
Recently the door plug blew out inflight on an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9, causing rapid depressurization of the aircraft – and a shirt and two phones even flew out of the aircraft. Had anyone been sitting in that spot things could have been much worse.
To passengers, though, cabin interior maintenance matters. Passengers don’t distinguish between airworthiness issues and cosmetic ones. Indeed, the only insight they have into the likelihood that a plane is being well-maintained is what they directly observe, and they infer from there. In light of what happened to the Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 9, everyone is especially sensitive.
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.
New all business class airline BeOnd has launched service from its hub in the Maldives. That may be a decent business during peak tourist season from November through March but they need somewhere super premium to send these planes the rest of the year.
Local island carrier Maldivian, which flies turboprops from the capital of Male to the country’s island airports, looked at the upstart flying narrowbody planes and said hold my beer.
Delta was expected to order these new widebody jets before end of the year so they’re a couple of weeks behind what I was reporting, on an order that I first said to expect in October 2022.
Excited, yet nervous, James Finnister turned to alcohol – shots – to calm his nerves over the first airline flight of his life from Detroit to Orlando on Spirit Airlines.
He drank.. heavily before the flight. Up in the air, his behavior becomes.. questionable. He asks flight attendants to join the mile high club. He reportedly pulled a flight attendant into his seat. And then passes out.
M. L. Rio, in a series of tweets on January 9, recounted a disastrous Airbnb rental experience. They’d booked a month-long stay but the place was infested with roaches. The stove malfunctioned. The door didn’t stay locked. And Airbnb wouldn’t help, telling them to pound sand. And that’s after numerous hours on hold with customer service, who even told them they’d get a refund if they moved out within a couple of hours, which they did – despite a broken ankle, which complicated getting in and out of a third-floor walk-up with a month’s worth of belongings.
Hertz systems are down, along with those of their Dollar and Thrifty car rental brands. Customers are showing up, and they cannot rent cars. This has been going on for nearly two hours without information on when customers will be able to leave with the cars they’ve reserved.
A passenger traveling through Washington Dulles airport had her backpack stolen with her laptop inside. There’s almost no worse place to steal something than an airport, if you can get cooperation from officials. There are cameras everywhere. But she was on her own to investigate – after receiving nude photos of herself via online messaging.
Air France KLM’s Flying Blue was already the best loyalty program in SkyTeam (although some partisans might argue for Korean Air Skypass) and has made several improvements over the past couple of years – better expiration rules, the addition of free stopovers, lower redemption prices.
They seem to be one of the few rewards programs to have re-discovered that better programs are more profitable programs.
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 »
