The Truth About Each Airline And Hotel Chain, In A Nutshell

by Gary Leff

airplane seats
Apr 12 2023

This is my rough guide to thinking about airlines and hotels. This can be useful, because it helps to understand announcements and changes that each one makes and also for transparency as you read my own writing. Specifically, these are my rough biases or frames as I think about each of the major U.S. airlines and hotel chains. I love some things about each one, but each also has its flaws.

Overall I fly American Airlines most, but I do fly everyone, and I stay at Hyatt most and recommend Marriott as a primary ‘backup’ chain since Hyatt isn’t everywhere you might travel.

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Aer Lingus Moves To JFK Terminal 7, Not Good For Passengers

by Gary Leff

plane docked
Apr 12 2023

The Irish carrier often offers inexpensive business class hops across the Pond, connecting to single cabin service in Europe. It has a codeshare partnership with American’s partner JetBlue, so they’ve sold tickets for onward connections at JFK on JetBlue. It was convenient, then, to have Aer Lingus in JFK terminal 5 co-located with JetBlue. With U.S. immigration pre-clearance in Ireland you get off the flight in New York as though it were domestic, and don’t even need to clear security to connect.

That’s going away, since starting April 27 Aer Lingus will be moving to JFK’s terminal 7 which means changing terminals for connections to JetBlue and therefore also re-clearing security.

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Corrupt oneworld Airline SriLankan May Finally Be Privatized

by Gary Leff

Apr 11 2023

Sri Lanka is one of the three largest recipients of lending from China. Their basic problem is spending more money than they have, and then limiting further what they have through regulation. The government there decided farms needed to switch to organic practices, banning chemical fertilizers and pesticides, which led to lower yields without being offset by higher prices. Food shortages followed.

The government needs to curtail its spending and devalue its currency. Part of that means reducing subsidies of inefficient businesses, that have been kept as corrupt enterprises to benefit powerful elites.

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Women Are Traveling To Europe Because American Dating Is Awful – But It’s A Trap

by Gary Leff

Apr 11 2023

The New York Times runs a trend piece on women traveling abroad to find romance. They say that dating in the United States is awful, and meeting men abroad is much better – that people marry later so the dating pool isn’t limited over 30; that men are more serious; that potential mates are more adventurous (while in the U.S. all men are the same archetypes).

The first thing to know about any trend piece is that there isn’t really a trend, although the pieces themselves might create one. All you need is a little anecdata.

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Southwest Airlines Doesn’t Understand The One Thing That Makes Them Better Than United

by Gary Leff

Apr 11 2023

Southwest Airlines used to carry more local passengers to and from Denver, while United had more passengers total given their big connecting hub there. Now United actually carries more Denver locals, too – a result of offering more total seats in the market (they’ve replaced a bunch of regional jets with mainline flying). There’s no reason to make disingenuous advertising claims when they actually have a killer argument to make. Yet somehow they fail to do so?

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United Airlines Passenger Brings Cupcakes To Celebrate Earning Million Mile Status

by Gary Leff

Apr 11 2023

One United Airlines customer brought cupcakes for the airline’s employees to celebrate crossing the one million mile threshold, earning lifetime Gold status with the carrier (and extending his status to a partner). He wasn’t looking for the airline to do something for him, he did something for the people at the airline who have helped him along his journey.

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Is It Better To Book Airline Tickets Roundtrip Or One-Way?

by Gary Leff

airline ticket
Apr 11 2023

Fares aren’t usually cheaper when you book roundtrip the way they used to be. And, outside of basic economy fares, there usually aren’t change fees anymore – so buying one way tickets won’t ‘double the change fees’ if you have to cancel a trip the way that they used to. So much of the time you can take advantage of the flexibility that separate tickets offered.

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Boeing 737 Nose Gear Fails When Flight Touches Down In Dublin

by Gary Leff

Apr 11 2023

The Boeing 737-800 (registration EI-DHH) touched down on runway 28L, veered to the left off of the runway, but pilots managed to get the aircraft back onto the runway. Air traffic control instructed the arriving aircraft behind it to perform a go-around while cockpit crew of the Ryanair flight sought guidance on whether their aircraft was on fire or emitting smoke.

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