Costa Rica has been one of a handful of places to welcome Americans in recent months. They’ve been dealing with significant spread of Covid-19 since August. So far over 160,000 Costa Ricans have been confirmed to have the virus, and around 2000 have died.
The country has new restrictions going into effect December 31.
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 December 24, the midday American Airlines Los Angeles – Honolulu flight cancelled. Christmas in paradise was at risk for its passengers.
So American Airlines decided to add a stop to its Los Angles – Maui flight 1859 to drop off passengers in Honolulu enroute to Maui’s Kahului Airport.
Delta cancelled 67 flights on Christmas Eve day. They had already cancelled 123 flights on Christmas Day, or 10% of their schedule, by 6 a.m. on the East Coast. In contrast American Airlines had cancelled only one flight.
This follows an operational meltdown over Thanksgiving.
Many flight safety briefings are done by video nowadays, at least on aircraft equipped with inflight entertainment. But flight attendants used to do safety briefings live and on some aircraft of course they still do.
As long as all of the relevant information is included in the briefing, the particular verbiage isn’t dictated. Back in 1999, I think, I first heard “‘Twas the Flight Before Christmas” and it went something like this:
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.
Delta ran a $479 roundtrip business class fare from New York to São Paulo. It only lasted for a few hours. It was probably a mistake fare, but many people assumed it was intentional because of something very strange that happened next. American Airlines matched the $479 roundtrip business class fare.
No Covid-19 restrictions on travelers have been more erratic than Hawaii’s. The state’s planned re-opening date got shared and then pushed back several times. Communication around what tests would be accepted to avoid quarantine was poor. Even the state itself has gotten this wrong, sending a family into quarantine even with proper negative tests.
The island of Kauai even opted out of testing to avoid quarantine entirely after first re-opening with tests. Only their quarantine on arrival was 10 days, not 14.
Government payroll support (subsidies) require airlines to pay their furloughed workers, and not to furlough any more, through March 31. Internal American Airlines documents show that most workers won’t be back to work before that meaning most will never be back to work.
The airline does not even plan for two thirds of flight attendants to work during the Payroll Support Program period, and internal documents show how they may reduce the amount of government money that have to pay out to employees – keeping more for themselves.
Attorney and radio host Leo Terrell, who endorsed President Trump and was in Atlanta speaking at a rally for Senator Kelly Loeffler, took to twitter to share that Delta flight 335 from Atlanta to Los Angeles on Wednesday afternoon was forced to turn back to Atlanta.
Delta sent the flight back to eject one passenger on the flight. While getting off the plane he stopped to say hello to Terrell, who was filming.
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 »
