I shared this month that American Airlines is still planning new cabins for Boeing 787-9s they take delivery of, and Airbus A321XLRs. There will be full mockups of the cabins for testing this time.
Just before the pandemic American Airlines was previewing potential seat choices.
Adults can get vaccinated and children cannot. You may be able to travel, but what about travel with your kids?
Is it reasonable to travel with children who haven’t been vaccinated? And will countries allow unvaccinated children to enter?
A passenger on board an American Airlines flight to Phoenix shared video of what happened when they landed and arrived at their gate. A fight broke out between passengers over who would disembark first. Another passenger can be heard saying “they’re calling for law enforcement.”
You can’t split up families. And back-to-front leads to bunching as well. And since those don’t work out as well in practice as in theory, their regular boarding process stands.
This is why airlines all tinker with their process from time to time and never stop tinkering, because they’re never been able to do much to improve – with few exceptions.
In a move that may be ‘the most Bonvoy thing ever,’ the J.W. Marriott Los Cabos Resort says they charge guests using points a $30 redemption fee. This fee, or loyalty tax, applies only to free night awards and is not billed to guests paying cash. It’s not even disclosed in the rate details when booking a points stay.
United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby shared that in 1998 he was a Vice President at America West and a single conversation changed his view about change fees, and he’s wanted to eliminate them ever since. It took until August 2020 to do it and then American, Delta, Alaska and JetBlue all followed.
The interesting part of the story isn’t the golf game that game him the epiphany, it’s why it took 22 years for this change to happen.
At most U.S. airlines if a flight attendant provides great service it’s because of their own inner drive. It’s not because of any training program or incentives that the company has set up.
One of the most frustrating thing I hear from cabin crew all the time is about the small percentage of their colleagues who are slackers, who perform poorly and do as little work as possible (increasing the workload for everyone else). This is frustrating because there’s usually very little consequence. And seeing poor performers do just as well as those who provide exemplary service is demoralizing.
Late Marriott CEO Arne Sorenson lent international support for China’s argument that their response to Covid-19 was world-leading. Sorenson knew that crushing the pandemic through any means necessary was good for travel and the hotel business. And he knew that flattering Chinese officials and supporting their narratives is key to staying in their good graces. China is a key growth market for Marriott.
New Marriott CEO Tony Capuano appears to be taking a similar approach.
The last Director of National Intelligence says there “quite a few” incidents that are “difficult to explain” incidents “exceed[ing] the sound barrier without a sonic boom.” And in some cases “we don’t have good explanations” for what we’ve seen “all over the world.” Many haven’t been made public before.
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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 »
