News and notes from around the interweb:
- A claim by Richard Branson about buying aircraft
Branson told Mr Delosa the story of how he scored a $6million discount on planes in the early days of forming Virgin Atlantic after making a bet.
The company chairman he was buying the planes off said he would only agree to the massive discount if Branson could hypnotise anyone in the room.
The deal was done over dinner after the chairman noticed his watch was missing, not realising the cunning Branson had swiped it from him earlier as a joke.
- Amidst operational meltdowns Qantas gets good press by giving free trips to journalists
- Exceptions that American Airlines will (and won’t) make with trip credits.
- A $1300 Airbnb cleaning fee? (HT: @tmount)
We just stayed in an @Airbnb in Lake Placid.
Cleaning fee was $1,300 despite being asked to do the dishes, tidy up, close all the windows, put the towels and sheets in the laundry room, etc.
It’s a sneaky way to increase their rate. This seems standard, but left a bad taste.
— Steve Schlafman (@schlaf) July 10, 2022
- New study finds labor unions reduce product quality though this finding is never as determinative or monolithic as it seems, since relatively less-unionized isn’t that much better than American or United and workers at relatively heavily unionized Southwest don’t seem to hate their jobs (but then Southwest still manages to cull employees who aren’t a culture fit, to the chagrin of its unions).
