What American Is Telling Its Gate Agents About Automating Clearing Upgrades And Standbys

register
May 13 2022

Processing standbys earlier does make it possible for customers to get a main cabin seat and then be eligible for an upgrade 40 minutes out. However processing standbys earlier makes it tougher for a customer to run up to the gate, trying to make an earlier flight, and still get on. Non-revenue customers may be cleared onto a flight ahead of paid customers trying to fly earlier.

I’m happy with the tradeoff because when the algorithm decides who gets the seats I shouldn’t need to worry about rogue agents.

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Holy Moly, I’ve Been Writing This Site For 20 Years

May 13 2022

I started blogging one weekend day in May 2002 on a lark. I had several friends with blogs back then, and I thought I’d try my hand at it. Only I didn’t have anything truly original to say on politics and current events, which is what other blogs I knew about were doing. So I decided to write about travel and miles and points along with an eclectic amalgamation of offbeat news. I focused on what people came to me for help with and just things that amused me. I was writing for myself, not for anyone else.

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Second Time In Days, Plane Has To Abort Landing Because Another Plane Was On Mexico City Runway

aeromexico plane
May 13 2022

This keeps happening at the Mexico City airport, described in the media as “panic over Mexico’s air safety” as Aeromexico flight 762 from Bogota had to abort its landing on Wednesday.

Mexico’s airspace navigation service director resigned over this past weekend’s Volaris incident. The Aeromexico incident seems more common if indeed it’s attributable to a slower than expected moving aircraft, and there don’t seem to be allegations that air traffic control handled the situation improperly.

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Star Alliance Introducing New Credit Card, Adding Non-Airline Partner

credit cards
May 12 2022

Star Alliance, the largest of the three international partnership groups which includes United and Air Canada, plans to launch a credit card that’s separate from the co-brand cards issued by its individual member airlines. It’s expected to become available later this year.

They’ll also add a non-airline partner and are looking to bulk purchase sustainable fuel.

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Lufthansa Planning First Class Suites With Doors

May 12 2022

The airline’s Airbus A350s, slated to arrive in late 2023, will offer a one row first class cabin that’s been described as suites.

However what those first class suites would be like has been unknown. From an internal Lufthansa event we know that these first class suites will be ‘fully-enclosed’ meaning doors.

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Why Airfares Have Gotten So High

May 12 2022

The reasons I’ve seen pundits give for why airfares are so high are usually wrong. Travel hasn’t fully returned to 2019 levels, so why have prices risen so much? Fuel prices can limit which flights operate profitably, but fuel isn’t the current binding constraint on supply. And it’s not just a desire of airlines to make back the money they lost during the pandemic.

Instead it’s something far more nefarious.

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