American’s Threat To Cut Service From 30 Cities Isn’t a Ruse, Just A Convenient $6 Billion Smash And Grab

by Gary Leff

man speaking on microphone
Aug 16 2020

A ‘clean extension’ of the CARES Act means another $5.8 billion for American, a lot more money than they’d save with furloughs, and then we’ll be back to laying off employees again April 1 when it’s no longer election season.

Matthew Klint asks if American’s plan to drop ‘up to 30 cities’ without CARES Act money is ‘just a ruse’. It’s not, though the timing of leaking the story to Leslie Josephs was clearly designed as a tactic to push for a second government bailout.

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Customer Service Agent Dishes On The Best And Worst Celebrities To Deal With At LAX Airport

by Gary Leff

Aug 15 2020

Whenever I fly through or out of LAX I run into celebrities. And the thing is there must be more of them than I realize, because I don’t know who most people that are conventionally famous even are. I’ve run into Billy Crystal at TSA screening and then the terminal 4 Admirals Club, Reba McEntire in the Admirals Club too, and Randy Jackson escorting a child star in first class across the aisle to name just a few.

Airline employees, either more culturally aware than I am or just with access to a flight manifest, must find this an every day occurrence. So a Los Angeles-based airline customer service agent with a Tik Tok account is a dangerous thing when she decides to dish on the celebrities she’s met at the airport.

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Air India Pilot Was Forced To Fly Passengers To Bangalore – After Being Fired

by Gary Leff

Aug 15 2020

Air India fired 48 pilots effective Thursday at midnight. The pilots union says the move is illegal. Air India says they’re relying on a Supreme Court ruling from last year that allows the move.

Apart from Indian labor law what’s striking about the story though is that after the pilots were terminated effective August 13, one of them continued to fly passengers.

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American Airlines Warns Employees Not To Skip TSA Security When Traveling

by Gary Leff

Aug 15 2020

Last month American Airlines fired their Cleveland airport General Manager for using his security badge to bypass TSA screening and board a flight, and having someone else skip security to bring him his laptop charger.

Recently American reminded all of its employees not to skip TSA screening checkpoints when traveling. But the requirement for vetted people to go through regular security is dumb.

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Viral Tik Tok Video Shows You How To Check Into A Hotel Room

by Gary Leff

Aug 15 2020

I have a hard enough time keeping up with The Facebook. I like to argue so I’m more at home with Twitter. But this Tik Tok advice from a flight attendant has been viewed over 4 million times, and liked about a million times. Is there anything here we didn’t already know?

These tips are great as far as they go, but the best flight attendant hotel hack ever is making grilled cheese in your room with an iron.

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Why You Need To Wear A Mask On A Plane Even If You Have Covid-19 Immunity

by Gary Leff

Aug 14 2020

The only way to have a mask mandate is for the mandate to apply to everyone, and that mandate is in many cases the only alternative to stricter measures. Whether you agree with that scientifically or not you need to at least acknowledge that as the political reality. And that’s why an anti-masker should, I think, support mask wearing because it’s less intrusive than the policies that would happen otherwise.

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