Yet Another Survey Picks Virgin America as Best Airline

Enter the Holland America Line “Choose Your Cruise” sweepstakes by March 31, 2016, for a chance to win the grand prize: a seven-day Holland America Line cruise for two to the winner’s choice of Alaska, Canada and New England, the Caribbean, or Europe, including most onboard meals.

Beginning on June 1, Spirit will become the third airline to pull out of the Cuba market altogether, joining Frontier and Silver Airways. Two other airlines, American and JetBlue, have cut capacity on their Cuba flights, either by reducing frequency or downgrading to smaller planes.

When Muslim Advocates and the NAACP issue a joint letter accusing the U.S. airline industry of racism, it’s big news. And when the NAACP, the “nation’s oldest and largest nonpartisan civil rights organization,” follows that up with an advisory specifically questioning the racial policies of the nation’s largest airline, American, it’s nothing less than a media firestorm. Indeed, all the major news media covered the story exhaustively. And “American Airlines” has been a trending Twitter topic for several days.

With the high probability of Virgin America’s being folded into Alaska Airlines within the next two years, Virgin loyalists are in the market for an alternative. And JetBlue wants to be that alternative.

Following is our regular summary of the latest travel news and best frequent traveler promotions reviewed during the past week.

Today, two storied travel brands that are destined for the scrap heap announced a marketing partnership that only serves to make their imminent demise that much sadder.

Judging by their load factors, U.S. airlines are doing just fine. For June, Alaska Airlines filled 86 percent of its seats; Delta flew 87.7 percent full; other carriers’ results are expected to be similarly robust.

Tickets go on sale today from a brand-new airline.

Yesterday’s crash landing of Emirates flight EK521 in Dubai generated a flood of images of panicked travelers, loaded down with their carry-on bags, fleeing the burning B777-300. The headline of Bloomberg’s coverage of the incident said it all: “Crashing, Burning Planes Don’t Stop Passengers From Grabbing Their Luggage.”

In 2015, flyers filed 15,260 complaints with the Department of Transportation. That was a 34 percent increase over 2014’s 11,365 complaints.

In just the past month, there have been two major airline service disruptions, inconveniencing hundreds of thousands of travelers.

With Alaska Airline’s acquisition of Virgin America, it was just a matter of time before Virgin’s loyalty program, Elevate, was terminated and its members folded into Alaska’s Mileage Plan program. In the meantime, the programs were somewhat integrated, allowing reciprocal mileage earning. And beginning on January 9, 2017, Elevate members will be able to convert their points at a 1:1.3 ratio to miles in Mileage Plan, and have their Virgin status matched in Alaska’s program.