American Airlines CEO Trashes U.S. Visitor Visa System – And He’s Right

by Gary Leff

passport getting stamped
Oct 21 2022

American Airlines CEO Robert Isom is right – the U.S. visitor visa system is embarrassing, and it’s costing our economy. But more than that, it hurts our soft power and importance on the world stage.

On average visa wait times were reported last month to be an average of 247 days – a 14x increase over the 17 day average before the pandemic. It’s expected that visa wait times will cost the U.S. 6.6 million visitors in 2023. This is a huge failure of federal government competence.

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Nobody Minded A Six Hour Delay When This American Airlines Pilot Threw A Pizza Party

by Gary Leff

Oct 20 2022

Most passengers would have been beyond annoyed at the hassle, even though it was beyond the airline’s control. Yet the passengers on this flight were downright pleasant. And it’s because even though the delay wasn’t something American Airlines could prevent, how they managed the delay was in the very capable hands of the airline’s captain – who organized a pizza party for everyone on the plane.

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United Will No Longer Fly Its Old Business Class Seats On Its Longest Routes

by Gary Leff

Oct 20 2022

The airline took delivery of new Boeing 787-9 aircraft with the old seats, even after the start of the Polaris project. Seats can have a long lead time. However now, at the end of 2022, United has stopped operating 787-9s with old seats.

Just as United is preparing to decide on new business class seats, they’ll finish putting Polaris seats in the planes which operate their longest flights, like Sydney and Singapore.

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Airbnb Now Adds Resort Fees, Because Cleaning Fees Weren’t Enough

by Gary Leff

Oct 19 2022

Airbnb is taking on the worst features of hotels, without mirroring the things that make hotels attractive. Their cleaning fees are legendary, even while hosts give lists of chores for guests to complete (not just taking out the trash, doing the dishes, and washing the sheets but sometimes even mowing the lawn).

Sometimes Airbnb – and competitors like Vrbo – are the best option like when renting a house with a whole family or in a town without hotels. But it seems like they’re working hard to kill that advantage, as evidenced by this reported listing where the owner even charges you extra for booking with them and then adds on a resort fee.

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The Water Bottle In The Seat Back Pocket Was Bubbling – It Was A Tank For Live Fish!

by Gary Leff

Oct 19 2022

In 26 years of business travel I’ve seen and experienced a lot, from bird strikes to passengers self-upgrading and even one who brought their own alcohol on board and refused to stop drinking it even though they were in first class and the flight attendant was happy to bring them another. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite like this: a passenger with a water bottle in their seat back pocket that was bubbling and had a tube sticking out of it.

On closer inspection, though, it wasn’t just water inside the bottle. There were fish.

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