If you follow my blog, you know I horde collect airline amenity kits and review them in my Amenity Kit Review series. As such, I generally don’t use the products in the kits with the exception of sampling each item at the time I post a review. When I travel, whether it is a single…
Airlines (General)
Category Archives for Airlines (General).
U.S. airlines improve stats, United sells a hotel, mind-picking hotel execs, IHG changes and more airline, hotel & travel news
In other airline, hotel and travel industry news last week… The Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics released 2011 full-year data for a variety of airline metrics last week. Among them are several positive results when compared to 2010 and previous years, including the best on-time results in a December for the past 17…
Vote for your favorite airline & hotel loyalty programs in the Freddie Awards
If you haven’t already started receiving email solicitations from airline and hotel loyalty programs regarding the Freddie Awards, here’s a link to the home page explaining the prestigious awards and another link taking you directly to the voting portal. Additional information appears below. The awards ceremony will take place April 26, 2012 at the Renaissance…
Video: “Airline” television series from 1998 (UK)
I stumbled across another airline reality television series tonight I hadn’t previously known about, so thought it was worth sharing here. Camera crews follow airline personnel at Britannia Airways in the 1990s, once the largest charter operator in the United Kingdom. It rebranded to Thomsonfly in 2004 and then to just Thomson in 2008. If…
Losing your airline elite status? Many carriers make offers to buy it back
Today I received an email from American Airlines offering the opportunity to continue my AAdvantage Platinum status through the end of next February for a modest fee. Last year I took the Platinum elite challenge with American in part to re-experience a carrier I hadn’t flown since 1998, and also to rack up some miles…
United & ARC excel, TSA PreCheck expands, airport PFCs, Alaska’s new routes, idiot of the week & more news
In other airline and travel industry news last week… United Airlines reported its January 2012 operational performance and enjoyed another month of increased consolidated passenger revenue per available seat mile (PRASM) – up 8.5 to 9.5 percent. On-time performance and the number of flights successfully completed also grew about 1.1 percentage points from a year…
All airline travel waivers due to weather are not created equal
More than a year ago, I posted some general information about travel waivers and now that they’re increasing in frequency with winter weather, I thought I’d expand on a couple of points. Yesterday, United Airlines (and others) issued three separate waivers for Denver, Chicago and the Northeast. For the Denver and Chicago waivers, they isolated…
Reader poll: Flight attendant announcements
If you fly as much as I do, you probably have all the flight attendant announcements heard during the flight memorized and could step in if needed. Lately, I’ve been noticing just how many FAs break away from the script and add a bit of personality or other uniqueness to them. Southwest, of course, is…
American’s job cuts, FAA funding, Spirit’s fees, no-fly list expands, Hawaiian’s loss, Virgin’s JFK lounge and smartphone remotes
In other airline, hotel and travel industry news last week… American Airlines announced their intention to cut costs by more than $2 billion annually this past Wednesday through a combination of job cuts, pension overhaul and fleet optimization. The carrier is expected to work with the labor groups targeted for layoffs and if they can’t…
Missing an upgrade due to a lazy gate agent
I’ve grown accustomed to the inconsistency I experience and witness when flying these days. From above and beyond service all the way down to outright rudeness, it’s not one specific work group that’s exempt from the swings of customer service etiquette. Last week I observed the laziness of a United Airlines gate agent at Washington…