An historic “weather bomb” is making a mockery of airline schedules and ruining holiday plans for travelers across North America. With snow starting to build in some cities and fierce winds bringing record-low temperatures to many parts of the U.S., FlightAware reports 4,700 U.S. flight cancellations as of 1 p.m. Eastern Time. The website showed 35% of all outbound flights have been cancelled at New York’s LaGuardia Airport, while Detroit had a 43% cancellation rate and Seattle 46%. Chicago O’Hare was showing 23% of flights cancelled. Cleveland and Buffalo were much worse. Cleveland was showing a 70% cancellation rate, while Read more
American Airlines
Canadian airlines had a rough summer, but some airlines were much better than others. New data published today by the Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA) shows the number of air travel complaints submitted to the CTA per 100 flights operated by Canadian and foreign airlines. It’s an interesting read that could surprise some travellers. The tables include: • air travel complaint data submitted during 3-month time periods • airlines that operated a minimum of 100 flights to/from/within Canada during each time period • airlines with an average of 1 or more complaints per 100 flights The table published today shows Air Read more
Toronto is once again marketing itself in the U.S. as a great travel destination. The city has done okay with domestic travel, but U.S. visitors are key to Toronto’s tourism, as foreign visitors tend to stay longer and spend more than domestic visitors. The campaign is called “You Gotta See What We See,” and uses “enthusiastic, passionate Torontonians with stories we believe will resonate with our US audiences specifically.” Sounds like a smart plan to me. Many would-be travellers love to check out Tik Tok and Instagram pages before they book a trip, so why not use those influencers? Geographically, Read more
A return to fuller airplanes. Toronto hotel openings. And a potential return to Europe for Canadians. Here’s my Future of Travel blog for today. Middle Seat Occupation Returning on Some Airlines I hope nobody who’s been flying lately was getting used to the space around them. Because you can kiss it goodbye. For the past few months, many airlines have been blocking off middle seats to enforce social distancing. But with COVID-19 somewhat under control in some places, that is coming to an end. In Canada, both Air Canada and WestJet say they will no longer block off seats. Ditto Read more
It’s probably fair to say that no single city in the world has taken a bigger hit from COVID-19 than New York. But this is one of the greatest cities on the planet (and toughest), and they’ve laid out a plan to pull themselves out of it with a newly-unveiled group called The Coalition for NYC Hospitality & Tourism Recovery. I also have news about the re-instatement of flights around the world by Emirates, American Airlines, Korean Air, Qatar Airways and others. I also have an update on how Los Cabos, Mexico plans to open for tourism on June 1. Read more
