American Airlines About To Get Pilots Contract? Some In The Cockpit Are Furious

by Gary Leff

cockpit with pilot
Sep 05 2022

American Airlines pilots know they’re going to get well paid in a new contract. The company has publicly offered a 17% raise. They want 20%, and changes to work rules that (among other things) keep the airline from altering their schedules and leaving them without lodging on the road. United’s pilot union agreed to a deal offering a 14% raise, but when they heard about what American’s pilots were on the verge of getting – and unwilling to take – they backed out of the deal wanting what American was getting.

Some pilots – including union leaders – are furious with what they appear on the verge of settling for.

Continue Reading »

How Much Marriott Hotels Have To Pay When Bonvoy Members Stay

by Gary Leff

Sep 05 2022

Marriott claimed over 140 million members at the end of 2019. At some brands members represent about two thirds of revenue. Based on franchise disclosures, the average Marriott Bonvoy member pays AC Hotels a $200.74 daily room rate and at Westin hotels it’s a $185 daily room rate. Guests aren’t customers, they’re Marriott’s product – and the product that all hotel chains sell to hotel owners. While hotel chains push ‘book direct’ as a way of lowering costs, distribution isn’t free. Franchisees pay more for Bonvoy members than non-members, on the theory that Marriott is delivering these “leads” to hotels. And those fees fund points that members earn. For Westin in 2021, Marriott is charging 4.2% of “qualifying revenue generated by customers earning loyalty points or miles” for the cost of Bonvoy, not including bonus…

Continue Reading »

Passengers Go “Suitcase Bowling” Down Escalator In China

by Gary Leff

Sep 04 2022

A new meme out of China, ‘suitcase bowling’, is taking over the internet. As I write a version of the video shortened and celebrating a bowling strike as a suitcase falls down an escalator and takes out a passenger at the bottom has been viewed over 8 million times.

Two people at the top of the escalator tried to send their bag down on its own. However it didn’t stay upright – tossing itself down and gaining momentum until a way – who sees it coming and tries to outrun it – gets knocked down.

Continue Reading »

When You’re Booked On A 5 A.M. Flight, You Do You

by Gary Leff

Sep 04 2022

Airlines are one of the most small-d democratic experiences we have, where people from all walks of life with all kinds of backgrounds, experiences, and emotional baggage (the only kind of baggage the airlines won’t charge for) come together inside of a metal tube. We’re all different in our own way, and it takes a little bit of time after we wake up before we’re ready to conform. If you’re stuck flying at 5 o’clock in the morning, you do you..

Continue Reading »

Man Started “Violently Shaking And Kicking” Seat When Passenger In Front Reclined

by Gary Leff

Sep 03 2022

Sam Bowman reports that he was flying Virgin Atlantic in economy. He reclined his seat, he says, in order “to sleep and the grown man behind me started violently shaking and kicking my seat.” After the violent passenger was told to stop, “his wife loudly declared that I was a sociopath.”

The important point to make here, aside from the obvious “don’t physically shake the seat of the person in front of you” is that a passenger whose seat reclines gets to decide whether to put that seat in the upright or reclined position, outside of takeoff and landing where the government makes the decision for them. It’s not always appropriate to recline, but the decision belongs to the passenger whose seat it is.

Continue Reading »