United Airlines announced this morning that it has made a commitment of more than a billion dollars to electric aircraft through a partnership with Archer Aviation to develop air taxis for urban markets, while asking the federal government for a multi-billion dollar third bailout.
The deal has United acquiring 200 electric planes that travel up to 60 miles, providing a cost and speed advantage to the airport compared to UberX and helicopters.
China’s initial Covid-19 outbreak was probably 40 times worse than they reported.
While much blame for lack of transparency is leveed at the national government, early on it’s likely local officials who downplayed the severity of the crisis. Now President Xi relies on projecting an image that China has beaten back the virus and is among the best in the world at doing so. Without this his re-election is at risk. What does a 50% year-over-year drop in air travel after China supposedly beat the virus say?
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.
Saver awards in business class are wide open flying Delta to Israel for the end of 2021. Israel is likely to have nearly their entire population vaccinated soon, if you’re looking for a place you might bet on opening up to travel for later this year it’s a reasonable bet to make.
Each flight showing availability has between 2 and 8 or more business class award seats available (8 is the most shown even when there are more than 8 available).
Airlines already had mask rules before the President directed the bureaucracy to make it a mandate. Penalties aren’t really greater than before (just $250 for a first refusal), and there are more exceptions – for instance airlines now have to allow medical exemptions to mask wearing which American, United, and Southwest didn’t offer before.
The mask order, which runs until rescinded by the CDC or until the Secretary of Health and Human Services rescinds the declaration of a public health emergency, could become a law, and airline workers could be given priority for as-yet-undiscovered vaccines with uncertain benefit profiles in future hypothetical pandemics. In other words, just your average week in Congress.
Southwest Airlines filed it annual SEC 10-K and it contains some interesting information about the Rapid Rewards program.
They continue carrying a higher percentage of award passengers than anyone else – by a lot, and even more so during the pandemic – and leveraged the Rapid Rewards program for a $600 million cash advance from Chase.
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.
United Airlines Senior Vice President of Financial Planning John Gebo told the carrier’s employees that the carrier is open to mergers and acquisitions. My bet is this doesn’t happen, but there’s a way that it could.
As part of their soon-to-launch relationship with JetBlue, American will begin New York JFK – Tel Aviv, the most crowded Israel market but also the biggest.
Now they’ve announced the route that seemed to make sense six years ago when it looked like they’d go it alone to Israel: Miami – Tel Aviv. They’ve also announced six other new international routes, and two domestic Saturday-only regional jet routes. To several Latin cities they’ll be bigger this summer than they were in 2019.
Christopher Elliott has naughty and nice list for travel companies during the pandemic. He sees some behaving as though “they think COVID-19 is a hoax.” That seems like an odd position to take considering their billions of dollars of losses. But what he’s saying is that airlines and hotel companies are making travel more comfortable or fun, that encourages travel, and that’s bad. And the self-styled consumer advocate glosses over a company that tried to steal customers’ money because they promise to make employees take vaccines.
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 »
