Scalpers get scalped, FedEx Crash, Israel War Evacuation & More [Weekly Roundup]

Another week in the aviation industry is in the book, we saw some interesting things happen including a FedEx 757 making an emergency landing without landing gear, Mexico had their safety rating upgraded, American and Southwest are trying to take down JSX, and Israel's airport shut down as the country entered war.

• Credit cars and travel are hand in hand, unless you're spending a lot on flights or traveling a lot there's simply no way to earn enough miles to go anywhere. One way to earn credit card miles and rewards quickly is through group buys. One group buyer bet big on Travis Scott concerts but it fell flat and now he's struggling to even sell the tickets for market value. I personally am not the fan of scalping concert tickets, this is one group buy I don't participate in and I kind of don't feel bad for someone reselling tickets.

Frequent Flyer Rewards Scheme Melts Down Thanks To Travis Scott - View from the Wing

One of the reasons you can’t get your hands on concert tickets to the best shows when Ticketmaster releases them is because of... their value in earning frequent flyer miles. But many rewards points collectors are now getting burned.

View from the WingGary Leff

• Mexico's safety rating finally got an upgrade, after over a year of having their safety rating downgraded Mexico's airlines were prohibited from expanding new routes in the USA. With the recent upgrade airlines are free to add new flights and AeroMexico announced 17 new routes, mostly to Delta hubs that will start up in the next few months.

Aeromexico adds 17 new routes to the U.S. — mostly to Delta hubs - The Points Guy

Aeromexico will add new flights from seven different airports in Mexico to nine destinations in the U.S.

The Points GuyBen Mutzabaugh

• Over the weekend Israel was invaded and their main airport shutdown due to the attacks, because there are a lot of flights connecting the USA with Israel many flights were in the air when this was announced, most diverted or air returned back to their destination due to the airport being shutdown. One such example was United's 777 from San Francisco which was all the way up near the north pole and turned all the way around for an air return. All in all it was a 14 hour flight to nowhere, at least the passengers got a nice meal.

Israel At War: A 14-Hour Flight To Nowhere On United Airlines 777-300ER Bound For Tel Aviv - Live and Let’s Fly

Passengers on a United Airlines 777-300ER faced a 14-hour flight to nowhere after a series of attacks led to a declaration of war in Israel.

Live and Let's FlyMatthew Klint

• Speaking of United, they plan to revamp most of their Polaris offerings, along with more sleep focused amenities to help refresh and relax you after a long flight. What do we do now a days during long haul flights? Sleep. This make sense to focus more on sleep products as thy can provide more longevity of the products even off the airplane.

United unveils revamped Polaris experience with new sleep-focused amenities - The Points Guy

United just debuted its biggest Polaris business-class overhaul since 2016.

The Points GuyZach Griff

• This was quite crazy to watch, a FexEx 757 had a problem after takeoff from the Chattanooga airport, and upon trying to return they could not put their gear down. The crew ended up executing a gear up landing which went over flawlessly, the aircraft was mostly intact and no major fires broke out. Kudos to the crew.

WATCH: FedEx 757 Lands Without Landing Gear in Tennessee

If you haven’t caught it by now FedEx had quite the incident on October 4th. A 757 freighter scheduled from Chattanooga, Tennessee to Memphis, Tennessee had a hydraulic problem after takeoff, the crew elected to return to the airport however their landing gear could not deploy. This resulted in a

AVGeeksCharlie Mortling

• There's an on going war between JSX the part 135 carrier and commercial part 121 airlines, especially Southwest and American. These airlines are attempting to shutdown JSX arguing they act more like a 121 carrier and should be subject to those regulations. We'll have to see if a judge sees merit to the airline's arguments.

JSX Condemns American Airlines + Southwest Airlines - Live and Let’s Fly

JSX is asking for help in defeating “baseless allegations” masking competitive fears from American Airlines and Southwest Airlines

Live and Let's FlyMatthew Klint

• I really don't mind IHG hotels, if you need a place to sleep that is clean and well equipped then they are your hotel. IHG's top tier hotels are not to shabby either. I mostly like to take advantage of any running promotions hotels have to earn more points however IHG seems to be in a loop of repeating the same promotion over and over again.

IHG Seems To Only Have One Promotion Anymore - Your Mileage May Vary

There was a time of legend when IHG’s loyalty program was the champion of interesting hotel promotions. IHG sent targeted “Accelerate” offers to members potentially offering over 50,000 points for…

Your Mileage May Varyjoeheg

• This was another huge story this week, Air France-KLM offered to buy a huge piece of SAS to help take them out of bankruptcy, however as a founding member of the Star Alliance they would be forced to leave and join SkyTeam which would be quite the interesting jump. The takeover is currently pending government approval.

Air France-KLM Group Seeks 19.9% Share of Scandinavian Airlines

Air France-KLM Group seeks up to a 19.9% share of Scandinavian Airlines, which had filed voluntary petitions under…

The GateBrian Cohen

• Expert Flyer, a great seat award search tool has been forced to discontinue Star Alliance inventory search. Word on the street is that they had no official way to search Star Alliance awards and were scraping those websites to gather that data, I guess Star Alliance caught on and probably sent a cease and desist. I think I speak for everyone when I say I wish there was a generally easy way to find award space.

Frequent Flyer data tool ExpertFlyer loses access to Star Alliance inventory - Live from a Lounge

ExpertFlyer has lost access to a tonne of the award availability it had till a few days back.

Live from a LoungeAjay

• British Airways has some of the oldest 777s flying in the world, a lot of the 777-200s have older cabins and are starting to look very tired. We finally got word that British Airways will be looking to modernize the fleet and will be replacing them with more modern and updated aircraft interiors.

British Airways To Replace Aging Boeing 777 Fleet

British Airways is in talks with both Airbus and Boeing to replace its older Boeing 777 aircraft. Which plane could the airline order?

One Mile at a TimeBen Schlappig