Chris Elliot can be a frustrating writer. At times he makes sense. At times he's so far out there in his hatred of the deregulated aviation market that it skews his point.
Please don't call them airlines, they're loyalty companies. Chris Elliot, Huffington Post
A look at United Airline's latest annual report shows why it's no longer entirely accurate to call it an airline. In 2012, it sold $5.1 billion worth of frequent flier miles to credit cards and other third parties. It expects about a quarter of those miles to expire or go unredeemed.
By comparison, United earned $25.8 billion in revenue from its mainline passenger operations for the year.
Still, a significant majority of United's income is derived from the transportation business. Just because you don't like loyalty plans (for, it should be said, political reasons) that doesn't mean that UA is not an airline. Nor does it mean that loyalty plans are bad. In fact, in most cases they're pretty good, even in today's devalued state.
Perhaps the airlines and credit card companies have built a small army of propagandists masquerading as bloggers and consumer advocates, who obediently endorse the loyalty lifestyle in exchange for six-figure referral fees.
He's correct here. I've said before that I would not go to the miles and points bloggers for unbiased information because I don't believe they provide it. That said, I don't think Elliot is providing unbiased, consumer-based, advice either. You can call yourself an advocate all you want but that doesn't make it so. My real advice is to avoid most of the travel press on matters such as this and do what you think is best for your travel patterns.
An interesting article on airline hold policies was published today. It's fairly technical, but a good read.
Contrary to reports from the airlines themselves, they appear to be poised to make money hand over fist. It seems that unbundling and a consolidated market that's preventing entrance by upstart carriers is leading to high-profits.
Finally, those new "slim line" seats are turning out to be a mixed bag. Over half the people don't know whether or not they've sat in them but the one's who do seem to have an overwhelmingly negative opinion of them. I wonder if that's due more to a run of negative publicity? I have not flown in them yet so I truly don't know.
I do wonder this: Recaro makes some great seats for automobiles. If the airline seats are really that bad, why can't they make them comfortable for planes as well?
