3 Links I Love: A Golden Ticket, Langewiesche Backlash, So Long GPUs

This week’s featured link:

The Man with the Golden Airline Ticket – Narratively
This is more of a human interest story than an airline story, but the backdrop is about a man who bought the lifetime AAirpass from American and had it taken away. It’s like a roller coaster. I felt bad for him, then I turned on him, and in the end I settled into a gray area. Warning: it’s a long read.

Image of the Week: As part of its “Her Art Here” contest, United chose two women to paint an airplane to promote women in the arts. The first is New York/New Jersey themed and has just rolled out. It’s a stunner. Next up, California.

Two for the road:

The limits of William Langewiesche’s ‘airmanship’ – Medium
There has been quite a backlash to Langewiesche’s article about the MAX problems. Here’s one article that addresses it. Effectively the criticism going around is that it focuses too much on the pilots and not on the other factors. That’s fair, but I don’t personally think there’s an issue with focusing on the pilot piece in greater detail. There should have been more effort to show broader culpability, I suppose, but ultimately, it’s still a corner worth exploring.

United Airlines Introduces PlusPoints – New Upgrade Benefits for MileagePlus Premier Members – United NewsHub
On the surface, this all looks great. But we all know what the end game is here. Changing from GPUs and RPUs to using a points system for upgrades just makes it easier to devalue in the future. Who wants to take bets on how long it is before the first devaluation occurs?