If you wanted to open a business like a restaurant in the Atlanta airport you needed to pay the ex-Mayor’s daughter first. The airport’s former manager was fired for being insufficiently corrupt, and then the city council buried the payments that bought his silence.
Getting kickbacks from vendors avoids problems with violating FAA rules on use of funds, but does sometimes attract attention of the FBI. Some employees just commit expense fraud.
On April 5, two elderly passengers were removed from an American Airlines flight because the gate agent wouldn’t let them fly with their cello – even though they’d purchased a seat for the cello from the airline and flown with it on the first segment of their trip.
The passengers had flown from Palm Springs to Dallas – Fort Worth. They boarded their second flight. And a gate agent came on board and declared that they’d be unable to fly with a cello.
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.
One of the more controversial aspects of flying is whether coach passengers should use the first class lavatory. American Airlines doesn’t have any rule against it on first class flights, but a woman of Middle Eastern and Latin descent Yazz Giraldo brought her three year old up from the bulkhead row of coach when he desperately had to go – and a flight attendant locked them into the lavatory. When she finally let them out she informed them they were responsible for a ‘terrorist incident’ and law enforcement met the plane.
This was all unfolding unbeknownst to the woman’s husband, also on the plane, a former FBI agent member of the Joint Terrorism Task Force.
Spirit Airlines is offering a unique status match oppportunity with top tier elite status for $99 (or lower status for $49) and they will even provide this status match for someone who just has hotel status from a credit card. That’s something many of you will want to jump on, because it makes Spirit Airlines – which has great fares, and lots of fees – an incredible deal because it can get rid of most of the fees and can even give you a free drink and snack on board. That could even be Hilton Silver status from a credit card, it doesn’t matter. There’s a fee for the match, but if you’re going to travel on Spirit only once it could be worthwhile. But you’ll want to consider taking advantage of this right now:…
Southwest Airlines has open seating. You take any seat that’s available. There’s no rule against saving seats, but also nothing that says you can do it either. Basically it’s everyone for themselves. Yet there are basic, unspoken rules. Violate one of those, get the captain involved, and you’re going to be removed from the aircraft for a conversation with law enforcement.
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.
Nobody wants to fly to Haiti. Everyone wants to fly out of Haiti. And that’s making airline service to Port-au-Prince challenging. In fact it is 8 to 24 times as much to buy a ticket out of Haiti as it does to buy a flight to go there. The route is a mere 713 miles.
A couple of weeks ago an American Airlines first class passenger was dragged off of a flight by police after he insisted on a predeparture beverage.
A Delta Air Lines first class passenger took a different approach to being denied their pre-takeoff cocktail.
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.
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 »
