Tag Archives for austin.
The Austin airport has been working to add an independent lounge apart from the American, United, and Delta clubs that are already open there. They solicited a bid for the space back in the early spring, and the airport selected MAG (“Manchester Airport Group”) USA which runs Escape lounges. These are pay per use and accessible free to American Express Platinum cardmembers.
American Airlines announced this morning several new routes, the biggest of which are from my home airport in Austin. They also announced several one-off services to major events like the Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting and Augusta National Masters Golf Tournament.
The Austin flights in particular are exciting because they’re a departure from American’s usual strategy. These are point-to-point flights that don’t touch hubs, instead they’re aggressively competing with new flights between Delta focus cities.
The Austin airport teased a new route announcement coming this morning. Routes Online broke the news ahead of their announcement – and it’s one I didn’t expect.
Austin has been one of the fastest growing airports in the country in recent years. This year they increased the number of available gates at the airport by 37%. While the amount of long haul international flying is limited, there’s London service from British Airways and Norwegian and Lufthansa started flying to Frankfurt back in May.
Delta has named Austin a focus city. While the largest airlines at Austin, in order, are Southwest, American, United and then Delta the addition of new gates will allow Delta to grow – and the gap between the three large U.S. legacy airlines isn’t that large to begin with.
My hometown airport, Austin-Bergstrom, is offering subsidies to airlines willing to start non-stop service to Hawaii, Amsterdam, Beijing, Dublin, Paris, Seoul, Shanghai, and Tokyo.
Not all of these routes are likely (or even plausible) but most are — for the right amount of cash.
Kyoten Sushiko Austin has re-opened and if you’re in town you should go right away. There are a lot of great meals in Austin, from the world’s best barbecue to delicious Mexican, and many takes on New American and Asian Fusion cuisine. But Kyoten Sushiko Austin is the most interesting new opening bar none.
Avoid pickups at arrivals altogether especially in the evening and get picked up at departures instead. There are few evening departures from Austin, so the upstairs departures level is mostly empty.
And this is permitted, too. Electronic signs beneath the names of airline names in front of the terminal read “DROP OFF PICKUP ONLY.” The airport officially encourages upstairs pickups! I’ve also never had an Uber driver refuse an upstairs pickup. You have to specify a pickup location at arrivals, but I then immediately send a pickup message asking for upstairs pickup. The driver almost always thanks me (and this is probably why my Uber rating has climbed to nearly 4.9).
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 »
