Christie famously fell asleep at a Bruce Springsteen concert (though he claimed he only put his head back and closed his eyes).
Here he’s flying commercial. And he’s crashed out.
Southwest Airlines, the largest U.S. domestic airline, is raising several fees effective August 15, 2023, the carrier has revealed to employees in a document reviewed by View From The Wing. They will be raising pet and unaccompanied minor fees, as well as fees for additional, oversize, and overweight bags. Third and beyond checked bag goes from $75 to 125. Overweight bags go from $75 for up to 100 pounds to $100 for up to 70 pounds or $125 for up to 100 pounds. Oversized bags go from $75 to $125. Unaccompanied minor fees go from $50 to $100. Pets go from $95 to $125 per carrier, with no change to intra-Hawaii pet fees. Southwest still doesn’t charge for seats (they don’t pre-assign seats), don’t have change fees or basic economy fares that are unchangeable, and…
In April 2022 a federal district judge struck down the Biden administration’s transportation mask mandate. Did you realize that litigation over the mandate, though, was still ongoing?
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit has issued a ruling dismissing the case as moot.
The FAA is calling out Brian Kelly (‘The Points Guy’) who sold his eponymous website years ago, and no longer manages it, but still represents them in media. He blamed summer 2023 flight delays on FAA staffing, but the FAA points out that weather is a bigger cause of delays.
The FAA also calls out volume of flights and runway capacity as bigger issues with delays than staffing, though this is misleading.
While American Airlines Flagship first class largely means a bigger seat, a soup course, and more stuff in the amenity kit – and little else – departing from Sydney means access to the excellent Qantas First lounge as well.
The day began heading over to the terminal from the Rydges Hotel across the street, checking in with American, and then having breakfast in the Qantas first lounge before our flight.
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 unique features of Washington Dulles airport is that, despite building an expensive train system, they still use “mobile lounges” to ferry passengers across the airport from their D concourse and to bring passengers from some international flights directly to customs and immigration. These people movers were built in the 1960s.
A Frontier Airlines gate agent acted erratically, yelling at passengers as she tried to board the aircraft before a flight from Denver to Norfolk this month in a clip that’s going viral. When a passenger told the gate agent she was rude, the employee responded, NO I AM NOT YOU ARE!”
American Airlines flight 715 today from Venice to Philadelphia diverted today for a medical emergency. It was a crewmember on board in distress. And unfortunately 38-year veteran flight attendant Carol Wright passed away unexpectedly.
Airline domestic first class isn’t a marker of wealth, since a large subset of passengers able to pay for air travel can pay for first class as well as it often isn’t that much more. But it hasn’t really ever been a marker of wealth.
Twenty years ago 90% of seats up front were going to upgrades, which frequently meant business travelers who weren’t poor by any stretch but often in the middle rungs of the corporate ladder. Who is flying up front has changed a bit, especially with managed business travel still down, but it hasn’t matched the mythology of the product in decades.
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 »
