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Greetings from the Flight Wisdom Summer Palace. Today’s briefing is hosted by the Infrequent Flier. If you enjoyed his presentation of the news, please drop him a line on Twitter @Infrequentflier.
There is a lot here to go over. JetBlue Airways and American Airlines have signed an interline deal, and American is ramping up in New York at both LaGuardia and JFK. So, let’s summarize the developments before we analyze them.
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Helper Monkeys, new site developments, and a Fly Girls editorial….this time on the Flight Wisdom Briefing
Effective July 1st, for travel beginning August 1st, Spirit Airlines will now charge for carry-on bags. You will still be able to take your small personal item onboard, but if you wish a carryon bag in the overhead, that will be $30 before departure. If you are member of their $9 Fare Club(which oddly enough costs $39.95 a year), you get to pay only $20. And if you forget or miss notice of this new rule, you can pay $45 at the gate.
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[caption id="attachment_1706" align="alignright" width="225" caption="Lavatory - Virgin America A320"][/caption] This is the Flight Wisdom Guru with Briefing #14, once again reporting in from Flight Wisdom HQ…We ran a little long today, and will try to have a second briefing out tomorrow afternoon, to catch up before the weekend rush. Show Notes Virgin Atlantic to Launch…
The Port Authority, which took over control of Stewart Airport, 90 miles from New York City, is talking with domestic and foreign carriers in attempts to convince them to serve the airport. Stewart, aside from its position in proximity to New York City, has the location to potentially serve passengers who otherwise would make the…
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This week, Flight Wisdom and the entire Weneca Media Group family are celebrating National Library Week. Support your local library.
Republic Airways Holdings, owners of Frontier and Midwest Airlines, has advised that the two carriers will merge, operating as Frontier Airlines. It means that the distinctive animal mascot tails of Frontier will remain. For those of you afraid about the loss of the signature cookies, Midwest’s signature fresh-baked cookies will be rolled out to Frontier soon. Repubican CEO Bryan Bedford promised that Frontier would add a plane with Wisconsin’s state animal, the badger, but this will take time as “it’s hard to find a cute badger.”
Large portions of European airspace are closed today due to volcano ash due to the eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano. Many airports in Europe have been closed till tomorrow, and thus there is much chaos as stranded passengers struggle to find their way home.
If you are flying to/from/within Europe today, please check with your carrier.
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Our parent, the Weneca Media Group, unveiled its own custom URL shortener for our blogs, n9n.us. All of our posts will now feature n9n.us URLs. We are looking for bloggers wishing to do editorials on the briefing. If you are interested, please contact us.
European airspace continues to be shut down as conditions in the skies continue to remain dangerous. The following areas will likely have all flights cancelled:  Ireland, the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Estonia, the north of France including all Paris airports, parts of Germany including Düsseldorf, Cologne, Hamburg, Berlin and the airspace…
This is your latest Volcanic Update. The closure of most of European airspace continues. Today, out of nearly 25,000 flights, only 4,000 are expected to operate. Closures include Austria, Belgium, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, most of France, most of Germany, Hungary, Ireland, northern Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Slovakia, north Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine and the UK.
Senator Charles Schumer, who publicly criticized Spirit Airlines for their announcement that they would begin charging for carry-on bags, has secured the commitment of five airlines that they will NOT follow Spirit in this practice.
The Cunard Line, according to their press release site, is sold out for the next four sailings, April 22nd and 29th, and May 8th and May 21st. USA Today reported that the cruise industry is, of course, not affected by the current ash cloud. The Cunard Line’s Queen Mary 2 is the only ocean liner that offers regular service across the Atlantic.
The previous eruption of the Icelandic volcano which has been disrupting air travel for a week now was in December 1821 and continued until January 1823. Hopefully it will quiet down much sooner this time. The cloud seems set to disperse enough to permit aviation to resume tomorrow in Ireland, Scotland, and Northern England. A new ash cloud which is heading toward Europe may keep London’s airports closed, however. French airspace has reopened, but the reopening will be gradual and controlled. Lufthansa has already resumed some limited service and extra planes are flying to bring home stranded passengers.
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The ash cloud getting you down? Remember, as Bob Ross said…clouds are very, very free. A special shoutout to regular listener Steven Frischling, of the Flying with Fish blog, who compared the delivery style of the Briefing with the Joy of Painting. Perhaps we should rename the Briefing to the Joy of Flying.
As a courtesy, we’ve often reclined our seat as little as possible unless the person in front of us reclines theirs. So, perhaps we weren’t as uncomfortable with the idea when it was revealed that Spirit Airlines was installing “pre-reclined” seats. Using the term pre-reclined to describe a seat that does not move is like calling a door you’ve removed from its hinges pre-opened.
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This is Briefing 18. We’re still eager to get guest editorials. Those of you interested, please contact us. A guest editorial would be a 1-3 minute opinion on a relevant topic of your choice. It can be recorded over Skype or alternate digital means. We’re sure, while you aren’t tired of the Flight Wisdom Guru, you’d welcome additional variety.
JetBlue announced today the schedule for its Washington-National(DCA) service, now that it has secured slots at the airport. Service will begin on November 1st, with seven daily flights to Boston, and one each to Ft. Lauderdale and Orlando.
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The Briefing is the first to feature a guest, Benet Wilson, who covers Business Aviation for Aviation Week. We don’t usually cover Business Aviation at Flight Wisdom, as it isn’t our area of expertise, but it is Benet’s business. Benet also joined our host for the first annual Aviation Geek Gilbert and Sullivan Day back in January, which we’re hoping to repeat next year. Pinafore, anyone?