US Airlines Are Considering Requiring Covid-19 Vaccination To Fly. This Is Completely Unnecessary.

by Gary Leff

Dec 02 2020

While Qantas CEO Alan Joyce was the first to voice a plan to permit only passengers who have been vaccinated to fly internationally, U.S. airlines are considering a vaccination requirement as well.

They want to figure out whether this will give customers confidence to travel, and whether requirements can be made uniform across airlines so they don’t have to compete for customers with vaccine policies. A vaccine requirement though will be unnecessary by the time the vaccine is available enough for this to become possible.

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Ouch: The New American Airlines Safety Video Is Full Of People Who No Longer Work At American

by Gary Leff

Dec 02 2020

The new American Airlines safety video was supposed to debut back in April. It was delayed due to the pandemic. They queued it for December rollout, but decided it wasn’t a good time and tried to pull it back.

Many of the employees featured in the safety video are… no longer employees. They’ve been furloughed since the video was shot.

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Here’s The New American Airlines Safety Video, Now Accidentally Playing On 70 Aircraft

by Gary Leff

Dec 01 2020

Back in April I shared details of the new American Airlines safety video. The airline held off releasing it because of the Covid-19 pandemic. I only posted an 18 second snippet to offer a taste, looking forward to the airline’s planned release.

Now, however, the video is playing temporarily on 70 aircraft so I’m happy to share it in full.

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Will 2021 Reduced Elite Qualification Rules Make Status Too Easy, Benefits Hard To Get?

by Gary Leff

economy seats
Dec 01 2020

Whether 2021 status requirements are set too high or too low really isn’t clear yet, because we don’t know what travel is going to look like even as it starts to come back once the pandemic begins to get under control. And not all benefits are scarce, so that more elites mean fewer benefits for those who earn it ‘the hard and usual way’.

If it turns out there are too many elites, how a program handles that is still entirely within their control. But we’re going to have to wait to see how the 2021 travel year develops, and how programs continue to respond. Laying out elite qualifying criteria is the start of this, not the finish.

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Gogo Isn’t Gogo Anymore, They’ve Sold Their Commercial Inflight Internet Business

by Gary Leff

gogo plane
Dec 01 2020

Gogo has gotten out of the business of providing inflight internet to commercial airlines and will focus on the private jet market instead. They sold their commercial aviation business to Intelsat.

Intelsat believes it can negotiate more favorable terms with airlines (raise prices) and offer more bandwidth (allowing Delta to make internet free to passengers). Intelsat will lease Gogo’s air-to-ground network for 10 years as part of the deal, because commercial airlines (especially regional jets, which largely lack the capacity for satellite internet antennas) still use the technology.

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