Airlines Respond as Downturn Worsens

Nobody's stirring and nobody's traveling. Here's an eerie look at New York's 42nd Street from earlier this month.

Many of us have seen our travel plans for April and May thrown into disarray with flight disruptions and international border closings forcing airlines to cancel flights and adopt a never-before-seen number of schedule changes. These disruptions of course are due to significantly decreased customer demand as well as government travel restrictions, both related to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. More than nine-tenths or 93% of our global population live in nations with travel restrictions amid this outbreak. The movement of people within and across borders has come to a standstill across much of the globe as countries close their borders to visitors and sometimes their own citizens. These travel and entry restrictions vary among the world's nations but they all come at a time of reduced travel as airlines have slashed routes and tourism has plummeted and all but disappeared.

The enchanting city of Casablanca will not appear on American's flight schedule until the summer of 2021.

Let’s take a look at how this has affected the major domestic carriers. #AmericanAir has suspended more than 60% of its international capacity for the peak summer travel season versus the same period of last year. This includes an 80% reduction in Pacific capacity, a 65% reduction in Atlantic capacity and a 48% reduction in Latin American capacity. Twenty-five seasonal summer flights have been suspended until mid 2021. They have also delayed the launch of several new routes to next year, including service from Philadelphia to Casablanca, Chicago to Krakow, and Seattle to Bangalore. Previously announced new winter seasonal service from Los Angeles to Christchurch and from Dallas to Auckland has also been postponed until the winter of 2021. The carrier also disclosed they will further extend the start date of new routes. Service to London from Boston has been delayed until this October and flights to Tel Aviv from Dallas will not launch until September of 2021. Their domestic capacity reductions were scheduled at 60% in April and 80% in May compared with the same periods in 2019.

Elite status in the American AAdvantage Program has been extended until January 31, 2022.

American Airlines has extended Elite status in their frequent flyer program by another year. That means current #AAdvantageMiles status will not expire until January 31, 2022. Qualifications have been reduced across the board in all categories with a tiered approach. All Elite Qualification Segment requirements are cut in half, Elite Qualification Miles are being dropped by 40% and Elite Qualification Dollars have been reduced by varying levels from 33% to 50%. Full details are available at their website. American has extended Admirals Club memberships purchased directly from the airline by 6 months. They’ve also continued to expand on their change fee waiver policies. Currently, any ticket (either domestic or international) purchased between March 1 and May 31, 2020, including those restrictive Basic Economy fares, will be granted a one-time change without incurring that irritating $200 change fee. They’ve broadened their waiver policy to include all itineraries purchased before April 7 with upcoming departure dates through September 30 of this year. Customers with previously-issued tickets may now rebook their trips for travel through December 31, 2021 without paying any change fee.

Nearly all of the 106 weekly Delta flights to Hawaii have been suspended.

#Delta Airlines has suspended any number of their domestic and international routes in response to the monumental decline in travel. It’s easier to tell you where they are flying outside of the US in April instead of where they’ve suspended service. After significantly reducing service to most of Europe and the UK, the carrier is only flying once daily to Amsterdam from Atlanta and Detroit. Their Trans-Pacific flying will see them going to Seoul 5 times per week from Detroit and Seattle and 3 times per week to Tokyo Haneda from Seattle. Following suspensions mandated by government travel restrictions, Delta will only conduct daily service to San Juan from Atlanta and to Santo Domingo from NY Kennedy. Service to Mexico is limited to one daily flight from Atlanta to Mexico City and a few times per week (days to be determined) from Salt Lake City. They will also operate several flights per week (some daily) to the Canadian cities of Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver from their hubs in New York, Detroit and Minneapolis. Service to Hawaii from the mainland has been greatly curtailed and those arriving are expected to “self quarantine” for a 14-day period.

Airport lounges are closed for now but memberships have generally been extended for a 6-month period.

A full-year extension will be added to current Medallion Elite status in the #DeltaSkyMiles Program through January 31, 2022 with Diamond and Platinum Members being able to select Choice Benefits in 2021 as part of that extension. All members’ Medallion Qualification Miles earned this year will be rolled over to 2021 for qualification towards 2022 Medallion status. Additionally, all Delta Sky Club memberships with an expiration date of March 1, 2020 or later will receive an additional 6 months of complimentary membership. Sky Miles Reserve Card holders will also get a 6-month extension to use their Delta Sky Club one-time Guest Passes beyond their current expiration date. Platinum and Reserve Card holders with Companion Certificates with an original expiration date between March 1 and June 30 of this year may now use them to book and fly by December 31, 2020. Certificates that expire between July 1, 2020 and April 1 of next year will be valid for an additional 6 months beyond their current expiration dates. In recognition of the current COVID-19 situation, Delta has also waived change fees and provided greater flexibility to travel through May 31, 2022. This affects customers who have upcoming travel already booked in April, May or June as of April 14 as well as for those who have existing eCredits or cancelled travel from flights in March, April, May or June of this year.

While extending status in their Rapid Rewards Program, Southwest has also modified their already liberal travel change policies.

#Southwest Airlines was the last of the large US carriers to announce extensions with regard to their Rapid Rewards Program. As of April 16th they disclosed that Companion Passes due to expire at year’s end will be extended by 6 additional months until June 30, 2021. Those A-List and A-List Preferred members who earn such status by December 31, 2020 (not through any type of promotion) will see their status extended through December 31 of next year. Southwest is,unique among the majors in the US airline industry in that they don’t operate any airport lounges and therefore have no memberships to extend. They also don’t penalize fliers with any fees to change or cancel their flights. Nonrefundable fares (Wanna Get Away fares) not flown on the travel date, but cancelled in accordance with their liberal “No Show” policy (10 minutes before scheduled departure), can be applied to future travel. Refundable tickets (Anytime and Business Select) not flown on the specified travel date may also be applied to future travel. Anyone scheduled to fly Southwest between now and April 30 may change their travel to a date 60 days from the original date without paying any applicable fare difference as long as you’re traveling between the same origin and destination cities. Travel funds initiated from cancellations as well as any travel funds that have already expired or are due to expire between March 1 and June 30 will now expire on June 30 of next year.

United's still flying to Sydney via Flight #863, a B787-9 from San Francisco.

#United Airlines reported on Thursday that travel demand is “essentially zero and shows no sign of improving in the near term.” As a result, they’re making the deepest cuts yet to be announced by a US carrier, slashing their May and June schedules by about 90% of what was originally planed at the beginning of the year. The cuts were disclosed in a memo to employees later publicly released. It was from Chief Executive Oscar Munoz and President Scott Kirby. The pair announced United flew less than 200,000 people in the first 2 weeks of April - a 97% drop from the more than 6 million people it flew during the same period in 2019. It expects to fly fewer people during the entire month of May than it did on a single day in May of last year. While about 20,000 United employees have volunteered for unpaid leaves of absences as of this writing, the airline indicated it expects to be forced to cut payroll after September 30. (No payroll cuts are permitted before that date as mandated by the airline’s acceptance of government payroll support under the CARES Act.) United has suspended seasonal summer service from Newark to Prague, Stockholm, Palermo, Italy, and Reykjavik, Iceland. Flights continue to operate between the US and Brazil, Frankfurt, Sydney, Tel Aviv and Tokyo, in addition to their repatriation and cargo flights.

At a minimum, United's Mileage Plus Premiere members will enjoy the same published status next year that they have today.

Mileage Plus Premier status has been extended by United to January 31, 2022. They're also lowering thresholds for premier qualifications by 50% for each status level, up to and including Premiere 1K. For their Platinum and 1K members, they’re increasing ability to upgrade by extending PlusPoints expiration dates by 6 months. United Club memberships purchased directly from the airline have also been extended by 6 months and all electronic travel certificates now have 24 months to be used. In addition, all award redeposit fees have been waived for travel through the end of May and for all cancellations made more than 30 days before departure for the remainder of the year. United customers now have until April 30 to make changes to, or cancel, any travel they have booked through the end of the year without fees. This is in addition to existing waivers already in place which allow customers to change or cancel plans for travel through May 31.

The DOT's word regarding cancellations is final and they take customer complaints seriously.

Just a word now about cancellations. If the airline cancels your flight you are entitled to a refund, although carriers may first attempt to get you to accept a travel voucher or post an eCredit to your account for future use. The US Department of Transportation (DOT) in a recent memo confirmed it’s received an alarming number of new complaints from passengers. Many are being denied cash refunds, even for flights that were substantially delayed or cancelled altogether due to the pandemic. Some major airlines are wrongly telling passengers they’re only eligible to receive credits or flight vouchers. The DOT clearly states that this is in direct violation of the contract of carriage (the legally binding agreement between airlines and their passengers on every flight). What this means is that if your flight is cancelled or heavily delayed, you are entitled to a refund. Plain and simple. If you must, first file your complaint with the airline in question (keeping copies of all correspondence). If the situation is not resolved to your satisfaction, you should next file a consumer complaint directly with the DOT and can do so online.

Until next time..stay safe.