More than 150 people joined the wait list for the tiny American Express Centurion Studio in Fort Lauderdale, which tells you almost everything about what airport lounge “premium” means now. The space is small, the food is forgettable, and the only thing truly exclusive about it is how many travelers are still willing to queue for it.
A Frontier passenger threatened to kill the woman next to him and kept insisting there was a bomb on board. The crew got him calmed down after landing, but the aircraft was still held away from the terminal while law enforcement figured out how to respond.
People are now showing up at the airport the night before the flight to get a head start on TSA security lines. Last chance for a free $50 (or 5,000 Bilt or Amex points). And American’s pilots back on the offensive against management.
United says its network is now bigger than Pan Am ever was, a claim designed to sound like a sweeping victory lap. The catch is what the airline is actually measuring. Depending on how you define network, cities, and connectivity, the boast can be made technically true — while still leaving a much less dramatic picture than the one United wants passengers to hear.
A Delta regional flight attendant is running for Congress. She has become a full-time political figure with a labor-backed campaign, a sharp activist record, and a much tougher primary path than a flattering profile might suggest.
A Delta regional jet was already landing at LaGuardia when the pilots realized they had been talking to the wrong controller. The crew had switched to the wrong New York tower frequency on approach, and the mistake only became obvious when the controller asked the flight a simple question: where are you?
A man started handing out vodka shots in a four-hour TSA line at Houston airport. With airport security waits spiraling during the shutdown, passengers stranded in one of the country’s worst lines got an unexpected morale boost from a traveler sharing the bottle he would never make it through the checkpoint with anyway.
A senior Southwest captain says the airline fired him over “mean tweets” just 644 days before mandatory retirement. You can buy a retired DC-9 for $5,000, Porter adds a redemption surcharge, and a Senate candidate makes a mess of airline pricing.
Passengers on a Delta regional flight say the plane sat on the ground waiting for a late-arriving traveler tied to airline leadership. They also say a man who had already been upgraded was removed from first class so the traveler could take his seat.
A JetBlue redeye passenger in the Mint cabin was reported for solo sexual conduct, and the crew’s message included one detail that made the whole thing even stranger. Along with the warning and request for police or security on arrival, JetBlue’s internal note made sure to mention that the passenger was Mosaic 4 — the airline’s top published elite status tier.
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 »
