British Airways has a new nap lounge called Forty Winks” which opened on Monday in the First Class lounge at London Heathrow airport, which is currently open to business class passengers as well, and will also be a feature in London’s Concorde Room and at New York JFK.
Their sleep pod with Restworks (so there’s a revenue stream) feature “the world’s first chair designed exclusively for power napping.”
You’re either going to think this is awesome, and can’t wait to try this on your next American Airlines flight – or you’ll be appalled and finally agree with the Dallas-based airline that seat back video is a relic of the past, and applaud their decision to remove screens from their narrowbody aircraft.
Even as the world opens up, Covid-era travel remains complicated. The rules for travel are constantly in flux, and different everywhere you go.
Changing testing requirements actually forced an airline’s crew to spend a night in their Boeing 737, and fly home the next day without passengers or cargo.
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.
Cathay Pacific has a new video with people showing tattoos on their arms, repeating over an over “show me some” as part of a new “arm up, let’s fly again!” campaign meant to encourage employee vaccination.
This week only a new no annual fee rewards card, offering as much as 5x return in some categories, is offering a $500 initial bonus which is fairly unprecedented for this type of product. I interviewed the card issuer’s President to understand the strategy.
At an employee question and answer session last week, a flight attendant asked American Airlines President Robert Isom what the airline’s brand identity is now, expressing some confusion between being a low cost carrier and also trying to compete against Delta.
One of the most common questions I’ve gotten over the past couple of months is whether airlines will add more flights to Europe this summer, with countries opening up and vaccination rates rising.
American Airlines Vice President of Network and Schedule Planning Brian Znotis addressed this head-on with employees last week, explaining that American won’t add more Europe this summer because they can make more money flying to Cancun than Athens and they no longer have spare aircraft to add flights – so each potential long haul flight trades off with flying they’re already doing.
JetBlue flight 915 from New York JFK to San Francisco diverted to Minneapolis on Sunday after a passenger, who reportedly did lines of cocaine in the aircraft lavatory and made unwanted touching advances towards a woman on board, and made knifing gestures with his hands towards her.
Aer Lingus is warning flight crew not to get vaccinated while in the United States.
And to think, some airlines actually want their employees to get vaccinated. One entire airline flew to Serbia to get everyone vaccinated and then flew home.
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 »
