American Airlines sued for taking back lifetime airline passes!

sued American Airlines for $7 million today, claiming that the airlines illegally revoked his lifetime passes. The airlines seemed to have revoked the passes in December 2008 claiming that he was fraudulently using them.

Steven Rothstein paid American Airlines $250,000 to be able to fly first class anywhere for the rest of his life. Two years later he paid an addition $150,000 to take a companion with him.

It might be possible that he used his pass for speculative bookings and would cancel it at the last moment which is a nightmare of an airline.

There are lot of problems with airlines with regards to speculative booking. American Airlines has the following policies on its website -

Policies

Duplicate Bookings – AA will monitor booking activity at the travel agent level in order to identify duplicate bookings. American Airlines definition of a duplicate booking is the use of the same passenger name for an additional flight for the same market, date, IATA number, regardless of flight number, class of service or status code. You should never book duplicate space, as this is a waste of your time and a loss to us.

Fictitious Bookings – Fictitious bookings could include those with name field items that read test / traveler / tourist or a surname with fictitious initials, i.e. A / B / C / D / E. Please avoid the practice of holding space under speculative passenger names. We will monitor booking activity at the travel agent level in order to identify fictitious bookings.

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Soutwest Airlines: Is painting bikni clad supermodels on planes worth the money?

Southwest Airlines recently unveiled a new paint job on some of its Boeing 737 aircrafts. The new paint has a bikni-clad model painted on the fuselage. The temporary paint job is a promotional deal with Sports Illustrated for their annual swimsuit issue.

A lot of customers are fuming, claiming that the company putting soft pornography on its planes which is very inappropriate.

Double Standards?
In 2007, the airline’s flight attendant had scolded Kyla Ebbert for wearing an outfit that was inappropriate. The airline supported the flight attendant’s actions.

After the incidence, Ebbert went on talk shows, posed nude of Playboy and photographed with Richard Branson. The airline did apologize to her about the incidence.

Some comments from the Southwest’s Blog -

That is great. Looks awesome, but the woman plastered all over your airplane makes the girl you kicked off your flight look like a nun!

Does anyone else find this kind of trashy for Southwest? Having a woman in a bikini on the side of the plane hardly seems like the epitome of the friendly, down-home airline I’ve grown accustomed to. This seems like something Spirit Airlines would do.

I agree with some posters, that i find this tacky and somewhat offensive. I am a twenty-something male, and I would not want to have to watch this plane pull up to the gate traveling with my young child, or mother, grandmother, etc. I know Southwest is known for its fun, laid back qualities but this is just completely inappropriate to plaster all over the side of the plane.

The whole thing is in poor taste, and I’m acutally sort of let down that Southwest, a company I really admire, would stoop this low.And the great irony, as mentioned, is that Southwest would (rightfully) not permit anyone dressed this way to fly in their aircraft so as to not offend other customers. But somehow they don’t seem to mind offending their passengers from the outside of the aircraft.

What a stupid decision? I am extremely disappointed that Southwest would choose to have such a near pornographic picture so publicly displayed. It will likely damage the good reputation of Southwest for many people, as it has for me. What did they gain? Questionable publicity and some amount of revenue in exchange for less respect.

poor taste… try to explain that to kids.
I am an often traveler with SW, even earned a companion pass for my wife. She won’t fly with you anymore. How many people buy tickets for the pic on the plane? Fun is great… edgy is controversial.

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