Airlines - GoWanderGuide

Are Budget Airlines Truly Budget? Crunching the True Cost of That “Cheap” Flight

You’ll find Spirit, Frontier, Allegiant Air, and plenty of similar budget airlines on the departures boards at airports in many places popular with tourists, including beach towns, Vegas, Mexico, and the Caribbean. But budget airlines are no longer sticking to regional or domestic markets. Now you can even fly airlines with similar pricing concepts across…

May 4, 2024245Views

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Which Airlines Have the Worst Extra Fees? Someone Did the Math

Everyone knows that travel booking has become an industry of fake-outs and skullduggery, a netherworld of mounting hidden fees that only reveal themselves after you're deep into the reservations process. Buying travel is now a spendy striptease that bleeds accounts by a thousand cuts. The big airlines love to claim they "unbundled" core services like…

May 2, 2024209Views

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As Most Travel Companies Slash Point Value, Southwest Airlines Does Flyers a Favor

Almost a year ago, Frommer's warned readers that big corporations were preparing to reduce the value of loyalty points and frequent flyer miles. Since then, we've seen the predicted onslaught come true. Delta Air Lines made it harder for customers to obtain elite status and use the carrier's much-hyped airport lounges. American Airlines made…

May 1, 2024144Views

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High-Tech Screens, Bluetooth and Improved Wi-Fi: How Airlines are Stepping Up Inflight Entertainment

Last month United Airlines announced an ambitious, high-tech plan for its on-board passenger experience. By 2032, the airline revealed, more than 800 of its aircraft will be equipped for passengers to connect their Bluetooth headphones to the seatback entertainment systems. Today, only about 100 United jets have that capability. Made possible by the airline’s biggest…

April 30, 2024176Views

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American Airlines Flight Attendants Were Reportedly Reminded to Stop Lessening Your Misery

You know how flying with a commercial airline is terrible? The seats are cramped, the fees are outrageous, and the other passengers are always brawling or screaming about how their seatmate isn't real or showing off their bare feet or belting out their new gospel single. One of the few things that can make the whole stress-…

April 30, 2024175Views

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The Most On-Time Airlines and Airports of 2023

More than 32 million passenger flights were scheduled in 2023, and global carriers managed to stay punctual about 83% of the time, according to a new report from Cirium, an aviation analytics company. North America's record wasn't quite as impressive, with an overall on-time arrival rate of 74.45%, per the report. But look on the…

April 28, 2024197Views

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American Airlines Raises Bag Fees, Will Ban Some Booking Sites from Points Eligibility

It's almost as if the corporations dominating our lives are determined to make back whatever they missed during the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic. The cost of living is spiraling upward in multiple areas of Americans' lives, but that didn't stop American Airlines from piling on the misery by springing another fee hike on…

April 26, 2024176Views

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United Airlines, Matching Its Competition, Hikes Checked Bag Fees

What's the point of having "competition" among airlines if they all raise prices in lockstep? Perhaps United Airlines believed that it could minimize news coverage of the deed by announcing it on a Friday. But we caught it: The airline has hiked baggage fees for all flights in North America, from $35 to $40. That's…

April 26, 2024514Views

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Most Reliable Airlines? The U.S. Carriers with Fewest Cancellations and Delays

The 10 largest U.S. airlines canceled just 1.29% of flights last year, according to final figures for 2023 released by the U.S. Department of Transportation. The government notes the number was significantly lower than 2022's cancellation rate of 2.71%—and, in fact, 2023's number of flight cancellations was the "lowest in over a decade," per the…

April 25, 2024170Views

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American Airlines (AAL) earnings Q1 2024

A Boeing 737 passenger aircraft of American Airlines arrives from Austin at JFK International Airport in New York as the Manhattan skyline looms in the background on February 7, 2024. Charly Triballeau | Afp | Getty Images American Airlines swung to a loss in the first quarter but its forecast for the…

April 25, 2024150Views