Secretary Pete Buttigieg Estimates The Value Of Miles, Strands Himself Mid-Trip

by Gary Leff

Jul 02 2022

Secretary Pete Buttigieg says he was taking a connecting flight Friday evening and the airline (which he doesn’t name) cancelled his connection, so he insisted on refunding the segment. If things happened the way he describes, he stranded himself mid-trip in a city that wasn’t his destination, and he doesn’t ell us how he wound up making it the rest of the journey.

Along the way he offers commentary on the value of frequent flyer miles, which he estimates are worth ‘between 1 and 1.5 cents apiece’ (he’s right!) and settles on a value of 1.2 cents for the particular miles he was offered.

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Emirates A380 May Have Flown 13 Hours With A Hole In Its Fuselage

by Gary Leff

Jul 02 2022

A three year old Emirates Airbus A380 from Dubai to Brisbane may have flown for 13 hours with a hole in its fuselage.

Flight EK430 took off from Dubai International Airport and that may be the point at which the aircraft received damage. However it wasn’t until approach into Brisbane that flight crew advised air traffic control that they suspected “they blew a tyre on takeoff” and asked for emergency response services to on standby as they arrived.

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Delta On The Verge Of Buying 100 Boeing 737 MAXs

by Gary Leff

Jul 02 2022

Delta is about to finalize a deal for 100 Boeing 737 MAX 10 aircraft. The possibility of the deal between the airline and aircraft manufacturer were first reported in March.

Delta is known for buying only planes from foreign manufacturers. While they have taken delivery of new Boeing aircraft from legacy orders, they haven’t placed a major Boeing order in a decade and their entire current order book over more than 220 aircraft is entirely with Airbus.

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When Frequent Flyer Programs Are Worth More Than The Airlines That Own Them

by Gary Leff

Jun 30 2022

El Al is spinning off its frequent flyer program at a $500 million valuation. The entire airline, including the frequent flyer program, has a market cap of less than $180 million. They’re not alone. American’s frequent flyer program was appraised at up to $30 billion (and they borrowed $10 billion against it) while their market cap is less than $9 billion.

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