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United and American Blindly Copy Delta For All of the Wrong Things

Jan 23 2017

If you ask the top leadership at American what airline they admire most, it’s Delta. Now that former American Airlines President Scott Kirby has taken the President job at United, the same can probably be said for United.

But they misunderstand the lessons of Delta, and blindly copy Delta moves assuming that if Delta does something — since they run the more profitable, better operation — it must be both right and best for their airline.

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Inside the Singapore Airlines Airbus A350 That Just Launched from Houston

Jan 18 2017

Singapore Airlines flew its first Airbus A350 out of Houston last night. Indeed, it was the first A350 in Houston period.

This is the new plane which will become the workhorse of the Singapore Airlines long haul fleet. They’re replacing a large Boeing 777 on the Houston run, and have also changed the city it connects in enroute to Singapore. Houston – Moscow no longer makes sense with low oil prices, so they’re flying Houston – Manchester – Singapore. And with a smaller aircraft they may be able to make the 5 times a week service work.

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Are Two Of My Strongly-Held Travel Beliefs Totally Wrong?

Jan 12 2017

I avoid Cancun. My mental model is spring break and disappointing resorts. You can use it as a jumping off point to explore the Yucatan but I’d rather fly into Merida for that. It’s super close since I live in Texas and Southwest offers daily non-stops for the 2.5 hour flight (United has seasonal weekend non-stops as well) so if only I could find a wonderful escape there…

I avoid all-inclusives. I don’t drink a lot and when I do drink I have strong preferences for what I’m drinking. Do I really want to be locked into staying on property since eating there comes at no marginal cost? Even though each generally has at least one ‘nice’ restaurant the food seems to most often disappoint.

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[Disturbing] Video of First Shots Fired at Ft. Lauderdale Airport and What It Means for Travel

Jan 08 2017

This week’s shooting at the Fort Lauderdale airport was horrible. I’ve held off writing about it until now, because so much of the information immediately following an event like this turns out to be wrong. With wraparound coverage of the event online and on television, there simply wasn’t much that I could add.

This was a terrible thing that happened. It appears to have been carried out by someone who was mentally ill, rather than a coordinated terrorist attack. There’s an old saying that two anecdotes makes a regulation and three makes a law. Nonetheless these incidents are rare, flying remains safer than driving even factoring in what happened in Fort Lauderdale, and I’d rather mourn the people who actually lost their lives than use them as tools to make a pre-existing political point.

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Big Bonus Transferring Hotel Points to Cathay Pacific

Jan 06 2017

Cathay Pacific’s AsiaMiles is an American Express and Citi transfer partner. They’ll also be introducing a US credit card in a few months from a bank that doesn’t issue (and therefore conflict with) other frequent flyer cards and that will have a few really interesting features. They offered this in December but it’s available again and a pretty good deal: a 30% bonus converting hotel points to miles through February 28 You don’t get the bonus instantly, instead the extra 30% will post by May 31 (or sooner). Here are the programs you can transfer in from and earn the bonus: Update: Starwood is excluded from ‘phase 2’ (January/February) for this promotion. Consider redeeming Marriott travel packages 270,000 Marriott points (which is also 90,000 Starpoints, since Starpoints transfer to Marriott at 1:3) gets you 110,500…

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Outrageous: Man Whose Racist Rant Caused United Flight to Divert to Auckland Won’t Be Charged

united
Jan 04 2017

The man who caused 252 United Airlines passengers to get stuck in Auckland for a day after his racist, homophobic rant on United’s New Year’s Day flight UA870 from Sydney to San Francisco led to a diversion will not face charges.

Here’s the man talking into his phone upon landing in Auckland, “Tell my dad to get his law firm ready because United Airlines just diverted the […] plane because I complained to some fat […] who got in my […] face.”

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