Travel Is Up, People Are Buying First Class More, But This Could Crater In The Fall

by Gary Leff

british tail plane
May 25 2021

Top American Airlines executives presented at the Wolfe Research financial conference Tuesday, and revealed that people are buying more first class seats than before because they want to distance on board – and no one is blocking middle seats anymore.

While the airline industry is recovering, led by leisure traffic, that could come to a half in the fall as kids go back to school and employees return to offices, with business travel not yet recovered enough to make up the slack. As a result, their cost-cutting is important and they expect employees to work harder than before – in ways that won’t be good for the customer.

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Marriott Now Bans Credit Card Surcharges In The U.S. And Canada

by Gary Leff

May 25 2021

The Westin Fort Lauderdale Beach Resort was hitting customers with a 2% fee to pay by credit card. Marriott has rich credit card deals with Chase and American Express, but Bonvoy members were even being penalized at this hotel for paying with a Marriott credit card.

It took a couple of months after being exposed, but this hotel no longer imposes a credit card fee – and no Marriott hotel in the U.S. or Canada is supposed to, either thanks to a new brand standard.

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First-Person Accounts Of What Happened When Belarus Hijacked A Ryanair Flight Sunday

by Gary Leff

May 24 2021

Belarus used a fake bomb threat to justify sending a fighter jet to intercept Ryanair flight FR4978 from Athens to Vilnius, Lithuania – and force it to land in the Belarusian capital of Minsk. Then, once it was on the ground, they snatched a journalist who had been highly critical of the nation’s strongman leader – and living in exile to avoid just this fate.

Now we know more about what happened as that plane was forced to land, and how the rest of the passengers were treated on the ground.

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Mexico’s President Lashes Out At U.S. Airline Protectionism, Defends His Nation’s Air Safety

by Gary Leff

May 24 2021

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is hitting back at the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration’s placing his country’s air safety rating under review, with expectations of a downgrade, and the implications for limiting new flights to the U.S. by Mexican airlines and placing constraints on the ability of U.S. airlines to codeshare with Mexican carriers.

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Spirit Airlines Fight Involves Teens And 7 Months’ Pregnant Woman, Everyone Gets Banned

by Gary Leff

May 24 2021

According to the grandmother of one of the passengers fighting, “[t]he guy in the black t-shirt and his girlfriend were fighting” after asking that passengers not kick the back of her granddaughter’s seat. There was cursing that escalated to “snatching” a pregnant woman’s hair. That’s when things really got out of control and a flight attendant made an announcement threatening to divert the aircraft.

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