I said I was going to leave North America in 2018, but that didn’t happen. For a variety of reasons (many work-related), I had to scrap trips that I had planned. In the end, I was left with another really weak year of travel. Let’s start with the anemic visual, …
Year: 2018
It’s the end of the year, and you know what that means. It’s time to look back at your predictions for 2018 as well as make you picks for what you think will happen in 2019.
The 2017 review saw almost 100 comments, and it has been quite the pain …
As we wind toward the end of the year, it is time to take a look back on what we’ve lost in 2018. Dozens of airlines failed this year, and that’s not a surprise. Not all of them were beloved, but they should still be honored for giving it their …
Skyrocketing seat selection fees enrage flyers, enrich airlines – USA Today
I was interviewed for this article about seat fees, and as I’ve written before, I strongly dislike them.…
This week’s featured link:
Air Italy flights to Chicago risk rekindling row with U.S. carriers – Reuters
Air Italy has been announcing a ton of new service to the US recently with flights from Milan to LA, San Francisco, and Chicago. Do I think that this is being funded by …
The news started rolling in on Tuesday. United would be purchasing regional-operator ExpressJet from its current parent company SkyWest, but this is no ordinary purchase. It’s a very complex transaction that has United only acquiring a minority stake in a shell company that will be majority-owned by a separate, secretive …
Sometimes it just feels like Delta has run out of important things to spend time working on. Last week’s announcement of a change in the way boarding will be done starting January 23 seems like something that really didn’t need to happen. To hear Delta talk about it, you’d think …
In American’s most recent earnings call, CEO Doug Parker lamented his airline’s ability to do what Delta does. More specifically he said:
……[Delta is] doing a better job than we can today of making sure this sell-up activity is available to the customers. They have products that are there
Delta Bans Emotional Support Animals on Long Flights – KQED Forum
San Francisco public radio station KQED had me on yesterday to talk about changing emotional support animal rules. Originally I was just supposed to open the segment to explain what’s been changing, most recently with Delta. But in the …
This week’s featured link:
JetBlue Founder David Neeleman on How New Airline Moxy Will Change the Way We Fly – Condé Nast Traveler
Want more info on Moxy? Here you go. This is a lengthy interview, and some if it seems conflicting. Where I shook my head was when Barbara …
Earlier this week, I put out my two-part series on Southwest’s changes in the intra-California market. It was fun to do the analysis, but it wasn’t easy. Data crunching takes time, and acquiring data from some sources can be expensive. There’s more I could have done with this, if …
Welcome back to the second part of a look at Southwest’s pricing changes in intra-California markets. If you missed the dynamics that led to this change yesterday, I’d recommend heading over to the post first. Now, we’re going to look at the numbers. Thanks to Henry Harteveldt at Atmosphere …