Delta Quits Airline Lobbying Group

Delta Air Lines announced yesterday that it is quitting the lobbying outfit calling itself "Airlines for America".  This move comes after a disagreement over strategy about FAA air traffic control privatization.  By doing so, Delta would save itself the annual fee of $5 million.
Billing itself as an industry group "fighting higher taxes" and "unnecessary regulation", Airlines for America (a.k.a, A4A) has mainly focused recently on an aggressive protectionist campaign against three gulf carriers claiming that they are being "unfairly" subsidized by their governments and attempting to lobby U.S. Congress and Government to intervene to stop their expansion in the U.S.
This effort has suffered setbacks as other carriers and the vast majority of travelers disagree with A4A position despite a huge dollar budget on lobbying and advertising.

More Airline and DHS Computer Glitches on Horizon

The Department of Homeland Security's computer systems joined Southwest, American and United by adding misery to travelers' experience dogged by technical glitches to their computer systems. United had experienced multiple failures in the past few years, and Southwest was the latest to have issues last Sunday and Monday.  Fasten your seat belts as American will complete its merger of  with USAirways this weekend, consolidating two computer systems into one.  The puzzling failure of DHS Customs and Border Protection computers are the most troubling yet as the cause remains unknown.  The frequency and randomness of these outages have now become the new normal.

Spirit Airlines Consistent Track Record Continues...

The latest rankings of airlines on-time performance for August have been released, and there is no surprise who was at the bottom of the pile.  Once again Spirit Airlines took the honors for the worst performer (#13) and they are most probably proud of it and and of the most complaints per 1000 passengers.  Spirit thinks that no publicity is bad publicity, so we just provided them with a free service here at Premieretravel.com

Apology Tour Continues for United's New CEO

On the fifth anniversary of United Airlines merger with Continental, new CEO Oscar Munoz issued an apology stating that the merger was poorly managed and the integration was "rocky".
The CEO is on a tour to speak to United's rank and file and to lift the sagging morale of 85,000 employees, who were "allowed to be disengaged, disenchanted, disenfranchised-the three nasty D's".
Add another D or D- for the performance of the airline in the past year and CEO Munoz is dealing with quite many D's.  Passengers can think of another letters, like "F" for performance,especially in how the most loyal customers were disenfranchised, and the grade that most have given to United's service. It is notable that CEO Munoz has been a board director at United since its inception and has suddenly realized that United has issues that must be dealt with.  The sooner he can act, not an easy task, the better.

October 20, 2015
Brett Hart becomes interim CEO of United after Oscar Munoz was hospitalized with a heart attack.
We wish Mr. Munoz a speedy recovery