A woman who flew Southwest Airlines from Fort Lauderdale to Dallas Love Field on May 22 with her sister to visit their mother who had been admitted to a hospital’s intensive care unit says she was booted from an exit row seat by a flight attendant because she’s Muslim and was wearing a hijab.
She claims the flight attendant told her she’d “bring the whole plane down in an emergency.”
There’s been an increase in inflight incidents. There are several reasons for this including a disproportionate share of leisure travelers and mask mandates that increasingly make little sense.
However there’s a push to blame alcohol even though most airlines haven’t been serving alcohol in the coach cabin. There’s even now a push to have the federal government ban cocktails inflight.
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.
American Airlines passengers have built Austin into a make-your-own connecting hub, using the ramp-up in Austin destinations and the run-up in prices for flights they’d traditionally take as an excuse to use this smaller, friendlier airport for easy connections and savings. That’s helped achieve record-high load factors for Austin flights, even for the airline’s new routes.
‘Agent Assist’ software is going to clear standby lists earlier on these domestic mainline flights.
That’s going to make it harder to run up to a gate and get on the standby list, getting to your destination earlier. But it’s going to make it easier to upgrade when you do stand by and make it onto a flight.
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.
I reported two weeks ago to expect announcements from American Airlines at the start of June extending systemwide upgrade expiration again and offering further incentives for earning elite status this year.
It appears that the American Airlines IT shop is out ahead of their Corporate Communications team, because systemwide upgrades have already been extended in accounts.
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.
On Ryanair’s flight from Ibiza, Spain to Milan, Italy on May 26th, a woman returning home went into a rage after being asked to wear her face mask properly. The woman in an open shirt, short shorts, and her mask below her face started yelling at passengers who wanted her to don the mask, and spit on passengers as well.
For her part, the woman responded with a video in Italian saying she was ‘frustrated’ and ‘unlucky’ and threatening everyone who distributed copies of the videos they took of her on board.
Everyone thought the pandemic was going to last longer and be worse for the economy, and made plans that they’ve now come to regret. Rental car companies sold off their fleets. Cars are scarce because manufacturers didn’t order the chips they’d need. So we’re looking at long rental car lines, and in some cases sky high prices up to $600 a day.
There’s an easy solution that would help customers, airlines, hotels, and more – but airports are fighting to protect the rental companies and keep prices sky high.
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 »
