News and notes from around the interweb:

• Quick signup for a free 2 month travel assistant.

• Travel with Grant has a great American Airlines twitter team success story. It’s a useful example of the kinds of things you can get done over twitter, although his would have just as easily been a phone call.

• United will now scatter diverted domestic flights to several airports instead of clustering them

• Will smaller airlines leave Star Alliance by end of year? LOT Polish is seeking more clout within Star but faces a choice. Star’s voting rules have changed from one airline one vote to a system weighted by size of airline. As a result any airline who wishes to exit the alliance can do so without the usual fees through the end of the year.

  LOT’s “new” world is actually an old, restrictive world where fellow Star Alliance carriers can veto even internal partnerships, which will hurt LOT’s long-haul performance. LOT’s position is reflective of other carriers feeling constrained from larger members across all of aviation’s global alliances.

  LOT prefers to remain in Star but provided it gains greater participation. It hosted the bi-annual board meeting in late Jun-2015 in hopes of gaining leverage. LOT needs a few years to prove its new strategy to potential strategic and equity partners but an alliance decision may be needed in the short-term: a change in alliance rules means Star carriers can leave by 31-Dec-2015 without paying exit fees, which can be very substantial.

• Contra one rumor that’s been swirling around, the Philadelphia airport tells me they do not have plans for an American Express lounge.

• Some brands are easier than others to pluralize, see this discussion on Twitter. On further reflection I believe you add an ‘s’ to Hyatt Regency but that the plural of Andaz is Andaz.