These first class dining facilities are really nice experiences. They’re exclusive, never crowded, with sit down restaurant service and private bars. The food is generally quite good, and the drink service is too.
While Flagship lounges are open to oneworld airline partner premium cabin passengers and mid-tier elites and higher, Flagship First Dining is mostly available only to American’s own first class passengers. But there are exceptions.
Two U.S. airlines – one small regional airline, and another long haul low cost carrier startup – have joined forces to launch a cryptocurrency that passengers will earn instead of frequent flyer miles.
A former NHL hockey player wanted to put their feet up on the bulkhead. A flight attendant wouldn’t have any of it. Matters escalated, and now the player is suing American Airlines.
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
A flight attendant on board United Airlines flight 6060 from Charleston to Houston Intercontinental, an Embraer ERJ-175 operated by Mesa Airlines, was photographed appearing to take cash from a first class passenger. Another passenger on board reported on twitter that the cabin crew member “took cash bribes” from passengers up front not to enforce mask rules for the flight.
Another photo from inside the cabin shows at least passengers in the cabin not wearing masks, although the two closest to the person taking the photo are speaking to each other while at least holding a drink.
Airlines have a real problem when employees call out sick, especially during peak times like holidays. So they want their employees to be vaccinated. United Airlines has been willing to say ‘no vaccine, no work.’ Delta Air Lines first said vaccines would be required for new hires, and then said existing employees who didn’t get vaccinated would face higher insurance co-pays and other measures.
So far American Airlines has stuck to incentives – time off for getting vaccinated and $50 worth of company scrip – but found that many simply wouldn’t do it. Reading employee message boards there’s a lot of vaccine hesitancy, skepticism, and anger.
Starting Tuesday, September 14 American Airlines will sell access to its business class Flagship Lounges to any passengers flying an American Airlines or oneworld flight for $150 per person. This will even be available to domestic passengers. This fee is per day not per visit not per day, so a passenger connecting through multiple cities with Flagship lounges on the same day can’t visit them all for this price.
With the extension of the mask mandate into January 2022, Southwest Airlines told employees that it’s not bringing back alcohol this year. No word yet on what happens to expiring drink coupons.
While alcohol won’t be served on board, mixers will be as a standalone starting next month because the airline had planned to bring back cocktail service and had to order these ahead of time.
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
Early this morning Delta flight 1732 from Charleston, South Carolina to Atlanta pushed back from the gate – with more passengers on board than seats. The Boeing 737-900 has 180 passenger seats, but there were 182 passengers on board.
The aircraft returned to the gate quickly to offload the extra passengers, but this is uncommon enough I tried to find out how this happened and why the aircraft was moving back from the gate without everyone on board being seated.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
