News and notes from around the interweb:
- Here’s a new twist on ‘passenger refuses to switch seats’ a business class passenger insists she switch seats with her husband in economy so they can sit together.
When the woman declines, saying she should switch her seat with the coach passenger sitting next to her husband, the response is priceless: but she paid for her business class seat! (So, of course, did the woman she was demanding downgrade for her convenience.)
- Wells Fargo is hiring a Lead Marketing Consultant for the Bilt co-brand team salary up to $206,100.
- The Nebraska state auditor’s report is damning over the disastrous handling of government funds in startup Redway’s attempt at an airline based in Lincoln, Nebraska. They lasted 3 months and couldn’t attract passengers even with $9 fares.
They used pandemic aid money to fund an airline, and customers are still waiting for refunds because even though money was supposed to be held in escrow the funds are gone.
Initially, Red Way offered flights to Orlando, Florida; Las Vegas, Nevada; Atlanta, Georgia; Dallas/Fort Worth and Austin, Texas; Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota; and Nashville, Tennessee.
But the audit stated that only one flight operated by Red Way — the maiden flight to Orlando — was profitable, and only because it was able to utilize lower-cost fuel.
- Wait, Dave Neeleman’s son is married to the reigning Mrs. America and they have 8.1 million followers on Instagram, over a million subscribers on YouTube and nearly 7 million followers and over 100 million likes on TikTok?
Sometimes I watch this farm lady's cooking videos when they're suggested on IG.Shes got like 10 kids & always pregnant.I'm always like wow they work so hard on their farm. I googled them and her husbands father was the founder of Jet Blue, and that stove behind her is worth $35k pic.twitter.com/w0YAVULbIG
— Marisa Baldassaro (@Nerdspringbreak) December 15, 2023
- Uber is hiding driver pay cuts this was such a world-changing company but they’re living off of innovations from years ago and things have been pretty bad since they hired the CEO of one of the worst companies on earth – Expedia – to run the place.
- Delta is growing in American Airlines hub Miami, building a Sky Club in Charlotte, and adding flights in Austin now that American is retreating. Ted Reed asks if Delta is stalking the financially weakest major legacy airline? I don’t think that’s the explanation. These also aren’t the only moves Delta is making, however:
- They outmaneuvered American for a deal with LATAM shortly before the pandemic and so they need a Miami presence.
- Charlotte can be a good destination and fares are high with American’s dominance of the market (which it uses mostly for connections).
- And American’s departure creates an opportunity for Delta in Austin – Delta actually declared Austin a focus city before American got interested in flying beyond its hubs but American’s growth squatted limited gates. If anything the Austin move can be seen as a willingness to lose money (perhaps temporarily) to squat on limited real estate, since we won’t see net expansion of gate capacity in Austin until the next decade.
- They outmaneuvered American for a deal with LATAM shortly before the pandemic and so they need a Miami presence.
- Delta to add 25% more business class seats to ‘High J’ Airbus A350s
“Passenger Demands Woman Swap Seats. When She’s Told No, Her Response Is Amazing”
So you are not above spam-structured titles? Why not just rely on the quality of your content?
@ Gary — Please don’t get Tim Dunn so riled up this early on Sunday. Delta will fail badly at MIA and CLT, just like at they did at DFW and SEA. Nice to see them doing more stupid things.
@ Gene
Delta will fail at DFW?
From 1929 until 9/11 DFW was always in the top 3 of Delta’s most profitable stations with large Pilot and FA bases.
Delta surrendered DFW to AMR when there were easy pickings elsewhere. “Fail” is the wrong adjective to describe the 2005 exit, which I assume you must be referring to.
I flew on Red Way’s inaugural flight in their “First Class” on a not cheap ticket. I received, after they stopped service months later, a FULL REFUND to my credit card. So did four other people I’ve spoken to who were on the same flight with me. We were all on different PNRs, booked in different fare categories, etc., so it clearly wasn’t a just one reservation fluke.
I took screen shots and PDFs of credit card statements showing my original ticket purchase, refund, etc. Seemed very strange when this happened a few months back. Probably why they didn’t have money to refund those who didn’t travel?
Hagbard,
please let us know where you get your profitability data and please don’t tell us galley talk.
Delta had about 25-30% of the capacity at DFW but half that amount in local DFW market share.
DFW was an expensive connecting hub – just like CVG and MEM.
And you forget to note that Delta moved its DFW connecting hub assets to ATL and NYC and in the latter, DL became the largest carrier. NYC is a far larger market.
And Delta is still the 2nd largest carrier at DFW in local market revenue with local revenue share only a few points lower than when it had a hub.
No one in their right mind thinks that Delta is going to turn AUS into a hub that competes with AA, UA or WN’s Texas hubs or try to outgrow AA at MIA.
But DL will grow in AUS and MIA
And DL does have a pretty good track record of moving into AA strength markets and winning over business traffic that used to fly AA.
As for the new DL A350 configuration, these come with 7 new A350-900 deliveries in 2024 plus 9 new A339s for the largest number of widebody deliveries in DL’s history. The capability of the new A350-900s – DL’s first 283 tonne models – will open some ultra long haul opportunities which DL has not tapped.
@ Tim Dunn. — So, Delta pulling out of DFW because AA crushed them isn’t a failure? Oh, ok. Only in your warped view of the world…
“Her response is amazing”?? What’s “amazing” about it? This same interaction takes place daily, so none of us is “amazed” by it.
Delta is going to bleed money in MIA. They do well in their series of fortress hubs but American is far to entrenched to dislodge without more effort than it would be worth.
Interesting that the “hi J” version’s of DL’s A350s will still have less J seats than UA’s 787-9s, 40 vs. 48.
Does UA really have that much more premium demand than DL? Is it because of hubs in cities with more premium demand?
With a chance to come up with a significantly higher number of J seats, DL only added 8 to bring them up to 40?
@ Mark — It’s because UA is more premium that DL. Lots of $$ in San Francisco and New York, where United is still #1.
On a recent flight to Europe a man stopped next to my wife & I saying something to the extent that it looks like I will not be sitting next to my wife on this flight. I looked him straight in the eyes and said without question I will be sitting next to her. He then took his seat across the aisle from mine and mumbled something like he wanted to use that joke all day. He appeared to have been drinking as the flight attendant cut him off from the liquor. Fortunately for him he did not bother us for the rest of the flight.
Have developed a standard reply which I coach my travel group with when requested to swap seats, “Oh, I’m comfortable when I am”. Past that point, I hit the call button and let the FA handle it.
I’ve had to deal with mental midgets on flights many times through the decades. Usually men.
I simply ask them their destination, then get close to their ear and say, “If you would like to reach that destination with your balls intact, then get the F-away from me — now”.
Delta’s going to bleed money in Miami? I don’t think so. They might not make money at first due to startup costs but eventually, they will turn a big profit. They are dumping money into KCLT with a new SkyClub for a reason. Superior service, modern aircraft and the like….South America is ripe for the pickings as American can’t hold a candle to them. In the airline business…”kick ’em while they are down”. As for “Exit Row Seat”, I love the reply! PERFECT!
My wife and I once boarded a plane in coach and we were ticketed with seats next to each other. It was a long haul flight out of Dallas to Tokyo Narita.
My wife was asked by another passenger to switch seats with her because that passenger wanted to sit next to her husband.
My wife politely informed the person that her husband is me, and that I am sitting in the seat next to her. She pointed to me.
The passenger was flaggergasted because of how physically different I look from my wife. Some people assume that we are not together because of the different physical looks.
How often do you see a small petite Vietnamese American woman next to an Indo American gentleman of appropriate size… double in physical size to the woman?
It threw the India immigration officer at Mumbai Airport a curveball. In a separate event, once I stepped forward and introduced myself to the India immigration officer as her husband, he shut up and just stamped the passport.