Tag Archives for austin.
At the start of 2020 the Austin airport was on the verge of getting a new lounge accessible by American Express Platinum cardmembers. But a contracting dispute, the pandemic, and then American Airlines happened.
I wrote on Friday that Virgin Atlantic was expected to launch Austin – London Heathrow as its new U.S. route. Virgin is part of the joint venture across the Atlantic with Delta and Air France KLM. This is now confirmed. But they’ll be at a huge competitive disadvantage relative to British Airways on the route.
Austin is cheaper and administratively easier than heavily taxed and regulated California, and cheaper and warmer than New York. And it’s still a place that Californians and New Yorkers are willing to call home.
American Airlines and the Austin airport are announcing plans for a new Admirals Club near gate 14 that’s twice the size of the current club.
Before the pandemic American Airlines served 8 routes from Austin, flying to its hubs. They’ve quadrupled their destinations since then and passengers are using the airport for connections in a major way as well.
In any employee meeting American’s Vice President of Network Planning dropped two other cities they’re thinking about as having similar characteristics to Austin.
The Austin airport was supposed to be getting a new lounge accessible by American Express Platinum cardmembers. A contract was set to be awarded right before the pandemic. But the owners of Priority Pass disputed the award, wanting to build their own club. This stalled the process, the award was cancelled, and now the airport says they have no plans to try again.
When face mask policies were introduced for air travel last year, ‘but I’m drinking’ became a common excuse and passengers could nurse a Starbucks throughout the entire flight. This is no longer acceptable, or at least while some passengers will still do it – and some flight attendants allow it – the rule doesn’t permit it and you may get kicked off the plane.
Reclining seats has been a flashpoint between passengers for years. Spirit Airlines seats don’t recline at all – imagine the conflict on a Spirit flight if they did. Spirit has claimed their seats are ‘pre-reclined’.
But what happens when an American Airlines regional jet flight has a seat that’s pre-reclined, possibly due to poor maintenance?
Major airlines today seem more worried that some member, somewhere might actually benefit from a promotion than they seem to care the promotion actually incentivizing customer behavior.
With the return to travel, and passenger growth at the airport, the South Terminal is seeing more passengers than ever before and it cannot fit them all. So passengers are being kept outside the terminal in tents. In the Central Texas summer.
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 »
