In the past month I have booked two tickets from LAX to Sweden thanks to pricing pressure from NAI or Norwegian Air International. The prices were so good, compared to other days, I even positioned out on one round using my regional upgrades to get there and then my global upgrades to get to Sweden.
The next one I picked up just the other day and I will be embracing my “inner coach” and either use my already booked 25k Skymiles ticket to get to LAX to start or I can for free as a Diamond Medallion re-deposit the points if I find a reasonably priced ticket burning FlexPerks points and earn points on the positioning part of the trip as well.
Clearly Delta, it’s pilots and others are lobbying hard against NAI and it is easy to see why. Now I have no interest in getting into a political discussion of any kind, but I am more focused on us the flyers. I just find it interesting how this is the reality of air travel today and what is next.
Delta has decimated our Skymiles program starting next year and we have no choice. Don’t tell me we can fly another airline as American has shown how trustworthy they are this past week with their frequent flyer program and United, well, doubling the cost to fly a partner? I don’t need to say anymore do I.
Now I get Delta wants to protect its strong earnings for shareholders and for years the running joke has been what Sir Richard Branson said: “If you want to be a Millionaire, start with a billion dollars and launch a new airline”.
Our monthership’s ardent opposition from competition from another airport near ATL, to support of stopping Emirates Airlines from flying between Milan and JFK, they want to protect the turf they have carved out. To me it is fair they make SOME money at long last. But how much of it has to come on the backs of frequent flyers?
I do hope the rest of the year we can get some good news for a change as the only “race to the bottom” I see is what all the airlines are doing to their frequent flyer programs. Maybe a little competition from NAI and others will bring a little sanity to the airline game and get the bad taste we have from all the “enhancements” we have endured in recent months and years. Am I off base here everyone? – René
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You are not off base. Without getting into the politics of the matter I think everyone can agree that NAI is using every means (some would say loopholes) to operate a lean/low cost, operation. Delta (and other US carriers) oppose them, which wouldn’t be so questionable if Delta wasn’t ALSO using every means available to them (hub captives fares, ENDLESS fees, gutting FF program, BUYING a refinery etc etc…) to also try to make the most money.
Just another wee grammer check my friend: The correct usage in your headline is “it will cost you and ME” not “you and I”. The way you can tell is that you use what you would normally use without “you” … ie, “it would cost me” is correct. “it would cost I” is not.
Dig?
You are not off base at all. I feel like I’m being nickeled and dimed to death (except its more like twenty fived and fiftied); the only consolation I took from it is that I got to occasionally feel better about flying because I could take a “free” flight every once and awhile. I’ve said for years that I thought the airlines probably wished they had never started the frequent flyer program and, if they continue to gut them, then they won’t have to worry about having so many miles banked in their systems. I’ve been in deltas frequent flyer program since virtually the start so I feel like I’ve seen all of the changes and each successive “enhancement” has been worse than thenlast one. The airlines are getting just what they want: I no longer consider frequent flyer programs a perk worth busting my butt to “earn.”
Rene, It is not politics. It is economics. Since the inception of airline deregulation, airlines have been desperate for ways to limit competition, which benefits consumers and avoids the profits that can be extracted in a monopoly or oligopoly. The airlines have finally achieved their goal by reaching the current industry structure
@john – well said and spot on.
Rene’s, you’ve hit the nail on the head! Delta’s even concerned about the financing that foreign carriers receive for Boeing aircraft purchases through the Import-Export Bank. Delta is lobbying to eliminate or reduce the impact of the Im-Ex Bank.