It seems worth noting that the plan that American Airlines announced for a new 15,000 square foot lounge near gate 14 three years ago is not happening.
They’re still getting a new lounge, despite pulling back significantly in Austin and eliminating around two-thirds of destinations served. But it won’t be as large, and it will be in a different space.
I covered all of the airport lounge moving pieces at the Austin airport like plans for all airlines to move to different spaces, and to add credit card and common use lounges, as new construction finishes.
However the most immediate change deserves to be pulled out separately.
The Austin airport has an upcoming presentation slated for this week on its lounge plans. They’re building four new lounge spaces, will relocate all of the airlines, and make room for credit card issuers and common use operators that join programs like Priority Pass.
Airlines could board faster, and that’s valuable. But the requirements they’d have to impose to do it would be too costly on families, and wouldn’t meet the needs and preferences of customers either. Once they begin shifting away from the ideal for speed, additional alterations make sense. Airlines have ultimately settled on what really does work best for their business – a tradeoff between speed and other priorities.
On Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston rejected the American Airlines appeal to reinstate its Northeast Alliance with JetBlue. I wrote after oral argument that “questioning by the judges…seemed more skeptical of American than of the government.”
A Delta Air Lines passenger in Detroit allowed their dog to dine at the lounge buffet, openly defying Delta’s strict no-pet policies as staff appeared to ignore the rule violations, coming off a dog eating in the new Delta One JFK restaurant and another flying up front against airline rules.
A Korean Air flight from Bangkok to Seoul took an unsettling turn when a passenger reportedly tried to open an emergency exit mid-flight. The incident unfolded around an hour after takeoff where a male passenger seated at a crew jump seat by the emergency exit attempted to turn the exit door handle.
The Auburn men’s basketball team was flying to Houston on Friday when an altercation between players forced their plane to turn back shortly after takeoff. The No. 11 Tigers, fresh off a season-opening victory against Vermont, were en route to face No. 4 Houston when a scuffle broke out among a group of players on board.
A crypto businessman, Antônio Vinícius Lopes Gritzbach, was assassinated mid-afternoon at São Paulo’s Guarulhos International Airport yesterday. The shooting, which injured three bystanders, occurred outside domestic Terminal 2, in an attack attributed to criminal gang First Capital Command (PCC) which controls significant drug trafficking routes and tentacles across South American and European crime networks.
United Airlines supported affirmative action in California, adopted speech codes; committed to choosing board members on the basis of race; and encouraged the use of pronouns by employees. They’re making big bets on biofuels and electric planes. And they imposed vaccine mandates on employees during the pandemic, before the Biden administration attempted to do so.
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 »
