Holding Pattern

Business Class but Not Business Class, Window Seat but No Window, and Allegiant with No Sun Country

We’ve spent enough time pining over old logos — it’s time to live in the now. It’s time for some quick thoughts on recent headlines across the biz.

1. Gas

   Reuters reported that airlines paid almost twice as much for fuel in May of this year as they did in May of 2025. But, the WSJ said fuel prices are back down, and get this? Fares haven’t gone down! (But now, they’re back up.)

   No way!

   
   Airlines also said checked bag fees were going to be temporary back in 2008.

2. Business Class, but Not Really
   Unsurprisingly, Delta announced its new “Basic Business” fares yesterday, not to be confused with the current “Delta One” fare (which is also business). Customers get no lounge access (not even a regular old SkyClub), no seat assignment, and in our favorite move, no access to the “Delta One” priority check-in.¹

   

   “I know your ticket says business class, but this is Delta One … business class”

   
   We already pity the airport customer service agents who will have to (frequently) turn away the “basic” business class customers from the “Delta One” business class lines — maybe they should draft the revenue management employees to handle this super fun interaction.

3. Sit on the Kennedy Tonight or Tomorrow?
   United is testing a “twilight bag drop” at O’Hare that will allow passengers departing before 10 AM to check their bags curbside between 6 PM and 9 PM the night before.
   
   We LOVE this idea. We worked on ideas like this when we were roaming the UA HQ halls in unincorporated Elk Grove Township, IL many years ago.² There’s nothing better than freeing a passenger from enduring bag-check-lines at 5 AM.
   
   Unfortunately, those lines aren’t much worse than the traffic around ORD at 6 PM when you’d want to drop your bag off. You’re going to be waiting one way or another.

4. Schroedinger’s Window

   UA is also making headlines for a recent lawsuit by passengers who paid extra for a window seat that did not actually have a window.³
   
   We know airlines don’t like to give in when it comes to situations like these due to setting all sorts of precedents, but this has officially pushed into the bad news category for UA. We don’t know the math for how much money is being left on the table if they can’t upsell the handful of seats like this on each aircraft, but based on the number of stories we’ve seen on this issue — at least offer a discount?

   

   UA is now noting “partial window” on certain seats, but still charging just as much for the “non-partial” window ahead of it. Engh.

5. Read the Room, WN

   Southwest recently set off a social media frenzy with a recent, hand-clap emoji-laden post.

   

   WN got every sarcastic response to this post you can think of … and then some.

   Now this Substack already set the record straight on the proper rules for passenger movement and decorum, and of course, we agree with this stance, even with the annoying clapping.

   But leave the snark to the professionals … and KFC.

6. Meet the New Route, Same as the Old Route

   American recently announced its new service from O’Hare to Tokyo-Narita. The problem is, some of us can remember when the only service from ORD was to NRT.
   
   Airlines are all very good at announcing new routes, and understandably demur when cancelling service. Still, recycling an old route as a new route is so shameless that we have to respect it.

7. No Sun Country for Old Men (and Freezing Twin Cities Residents)
   The recent Sun Country/Allegiant merger might be the least covered airline tie-up in recent memory. The airlines just announced that the Sun Country brand will go away once the carriers have a single operating certificate. We just hope Allegiant doesn’t lose sight of Sun Country’s main purpose — to bring frigid, untanned Twin Cities residents to warmer climes in the winter.
   
   We’ll never forget seeing a Sun Country plane from MSP land in St. Maarten in early February and thinking, “Those must be the happiest people in the world.”

   
   And then thinking, the saddest people in the world are sitting at the gate right now.

   

   From the Al on the Airlines vault! Sun Country at SXM 2/5/07 — the high that day in Minneapolis was 1. Yes, that’s 1.

8. More Awards (to be Dismissed)!
   Finally, Travel + Leisure recently announced their 2026 World’s Best winners, which, like All-Star games, are based on fan/reader voting. Since All-Star games usually reward years of performance versus the current season, we expected the usual suspects (cough, Emirates, cough) atop the rankings. While Singapore Changi was there as top airport, we were surprised to see EVA take the top international airline spot.⁴ We were also impressed that readers voted mid-sized airports into nearly all the top spots in the US — we have been on this hill for a long time.
   
   Nevertheless, as we’ve said before, all rankings must be rejected for myriad reasons, not least of which is that every airport can’t have a waterfall.⁵

Notes

1. DL made a real point in their release to note this distinction, but we’re going to go out on a (crazy) limb that most Basic Business passengers will not have read said release before flying

2. The idea we loved (but couldn’t figure out) was a service where a customer could “valet” their carry-on at check-in and it would be in the overhead bin upon boarding — twenty years later and the overhead jostling at the gate continues

3. The nerds amongst us have known about these seats for some time — check out aerolopa.com before you fly

4. Yes, we have flown on an EVA Hello Kitty plane, and yes it was actually pretty awesome — commitment to branding is commitment to branding

5. Fun conversation with airport staff back in the day about a certain decrepit facility (that may have been in NY) — “We sometimes have a waterfall in our terminal, too, it’s just unintentional”