Here’s What Happened To The Class Action Refund Lawsuit Against American Airlines

by Gary Leff

Dec 25 2020

Several lawsuits were filed over airlines’ resistance to providing customers with refunds when either cancelling or substantially changing itineraries early in the Covid-19 pandemic, as required by U.S. law. A class action lawsuit against American Airlines has been resolved in a draw.

In my experience American Airlines was one of the few ‘good guys’ with refunds. The places to focus on are the airlines and online travel agencies which really did act badly against their customers – like United, JetBlue, Air Canada, and online travel agency sites.

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The Christmas Eve Safety Briefing That Makes Flights Awesome

by Gary Leff

Dec 24 2020

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:

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Hawaii Restrictions Changing Again, Kauai May Re-Open To Tourism With 4 Day Quarantine

by Gary Leff

Dec 24 2020

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.

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Revealed: American Airlines Plans To Take Gov’t Money, Won’t Bring Cabin Crew Back To Work

by Gary Leff

Dec 24 2020

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.

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