Phantom award availability on an airline website is hardly new or even notable. For instance Air France for years would show phantom Kenya Airways space. American Airlines shows phantom Finnair space all the time. British Airways used to show phantom space for LAN.
What’s different here is that Delta phone agents seem to be seeing the same phantom space.
A Southwest Airlines gate agent in New Orleans announced to passegners at gate B7 that if they wanted to ask a question they’d first have to sing a song.
One man had a question, so he broke into the 1997 Grammy-winning “No Diggity” by Blackstreet.
Last month went on a rampage with their aircraft clipping two planes and a truck within 24 hours.
Back in May United and American were blaming each other after their planes collided on the ground in Austin.
This time, though, American will have no one to blame but themselves.
American Airlines serves fresh made-to-order guacamole in several of its Admirals Clubs in the afternoon.
That’s great, it was a real innovation for them, and guests enjoy it. But the level of excitement over guacamole is, I think, a perfect example of what George W. Bush called ‘the soft bigotry of low expectations’.
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At American’s Media and Investory Day airline President Robert Isom reported that AAdvantage members redeem 1.5 billion miles per day. On one business class flight to Australia. (Kidding.)
The President of the AAdvantage program assures saver award availability is about to change for the better.
Air France flight AF66 from Paris to Los Angeles today lost the number four engine southwest of Greenland “when the fan and inlet separated from the engine.” There was “a loud thud followed by vibrations.”
The cockpit crew took the plane down to 31,000 feet and then diverted to Goose Bay, Canada landing safely after two more hours of flying. On arrival an inspection found hydraulic fluid leaking. There was debris on the runway from the aircraft after it touched down as well.
When you look at all the changes customers need to spend about 3 times as much as before under American’s revenue-based programs just to break even on rewards from flying. The idea that big spenders are coming out ahead is silly.
American Airlines rolled out their new ‘dynamic re-accommodation’ tool last week. This allows passengers to re-book themselves during irregular operations using the website, mobile app, or kiosks. Although to access the tool customers need to have opted into flight status notifications.
Four years ago Singapore Airlines ran an ad campaign “The Lengths We Go To” where you can see a Singapore Airlines flight attendant traveling in search of the perfect tea to serve you inflight, attending a Bollywood film festival to select movies for inflight entertainment, and more to find ways to make you feel at home.
And the thing is even though flight attendants aren’t exactly doing it, you could imagine it, it’s almost a credible claim.
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 »
