Are Flight Amenities Returning?
Fifty Years Ago Two Planes Collided Over Brooklyn
On December 16, 1960, United Airlines Flight 826 crashed into a church in Park Slope, Brooklyn. While no memorial marks the spot, it was, at the time, the worst aviation disaster in American history. The crippled plane set fire to ten apartment buildings, the ironically named Pillar of Fire church, a funeral home, a Chinese laundry, and a deli. Six persons on the ground died as a result.
FareLock: Fare or Unfare?
Continental Airlines is introducing a service called Farelock, which will be available when booking reservations on their website. Continental has long offered a 24 hour flexible hold, during which changes and cancellations are permitted without penalty. This is mirrored by many major carriers.
Kevin Smith Flies Again…Or Rather Fails to Fly Again
We here at Flight Wisdom are not big fans of Kevin Smith. This has nothing to do with his movies. Last year, Kevin Smith went on the offensive against Southwest Airlines over its long-standing customer of size issues, and we were not pleased with many of his comments. Now he’s on against Virgin America and the ten minute rule.
JetBlue Less Is More Sale
American Airlines Sale To/From New York
American Airlines is offering flights to and from New York from 30 cities starting at $49/each way in January and February. Tickets must be purchased by December 13. $49 fares are availaible to/from Washington, Boston, Baltimore, and Pittsburgh. Want to visit New York? Live in New York and want to get away. Go to American Airlines website, and save.
Wi-Fi Has Beat out IFE Onboard
Last week, Delta, the most expansive installer of wi-fi enabled planes in the United States, announced it would add onboard wi-fi to 223 Regional Jets configured in a two class configuration. This includes Embraer 175, Bombardier CRJ700 and Bombardier CRJ900 planes. Installations will begin in January and will be complete by the end of next year.
With Fewer Bags Checked, Fewer Bags Lost
Though 1.5 million bags have been lost by American Airlines through September of this year, that’s 900,000 fewer than in the same period of 2008, according to a recent article by Scott McCartney at the Wall Street Journal. While this sounds impressive, it is impossible to assess how much improvement there has been without knowing the total number of checked bags during each period.
Find People on Your Flight, With Planely
Tired of getting stuck sitting next to totally uninteresting people on your flights? Want to share a cab to your conference? Using Planely, you can. Planely calls it “the social flying revolution”. Simply register your flights, and planely will let you know what other users are on the same flights or at the same airports. Sit next to people with like interests. Enjoy a date while you wait for your plane(quick, trademark the term “Gate Date”). Pitch your new startup. The possibilities are endless. Could Planely make flying fun again? We haven’t tried this yet, but it sounds interesting. Have any of you tried it? We’d love to hear your feedback.
Southwest Pilots Tentatively Agree to Fly the Boeing 737-800
Southwest Airlines announced a tentative agreement by its pilots to add the Boeing 737-800 to its contract. Southwest currently expects to take delivery of its first 737-800 in the first quarter of 2012. The Southwest Flight Attendants have already had a tentative agreement of their own.
Leslie Nielsen Passes
Leslie Nielsen, known to aviation enthusiasts as Dr. Rumack from the classic aviation spoof, Airplane, according to reports, has died at the age of 84. Airplane launched a second career for Nielsen as a comedic actor, delivering comedic lines with a deadpan expression.
Don’t Touch My Junk
That isn’t the junk we’re talking about. The TSA has a new multi-pronged security measure. If you’ve been missing the news, it has to do with the enhanced pat-down. We’ve spent a few days over here at Flight Wisdom wondering what to say about it.
Secure Flight Changes November 1st
Tomorrow, November 1st, is a key date in the TSA’s Secure Flight program. In short, the Secure Flight program requires the TSA to assume responsibility for watch lists from the individual airlines. which seems a good idea, if we much have watch lists.
The New United shows first signs of synergy
United announced some new routes for 2011 that will start the process of optimizing their combined networks. They will add:
LaGuardia to Open New Tower This Weekend
The new control tower that has been rising up over New York’s LaGuardia Airport will begin operations midnight Sunday morning. The old tower will be turned off and decomissioned.
The New United Airlines
United and Continental are…on paper, no more. They are now wholly owned subsidiaries of United Continental Holdings Incorporated. It will take until 2012 for them to combine into one airline. Until then, they will run as separate companies, despite the fanfare. That means separate websites, check-in operations, etc. The synergy will not even start till spring.
More on the Southwest-AirTran News
We were bowled over when we heard that Southwest is going to acquire AirTran. Even more shocking is that Southwest and AirTran apparently started discussing this acquisition in the spring, which means they’ve kept this under wraps for a surprisingly long time.That is surprising in this modern world. Everything seems to leak out.
Southwest to Acquire AirTran
We started the day this morning with surprising news. Southwest Airlines is going to acquire AirTran Airways. It is going to take us a bit to really think about this, and we’ll have more later in the day, but let’s go over the big points now.
Flight Wisdom Announces the Beta Launch of AirportHistory.com
After a lot of consideration(we started fiddling with this a few months back), we here at Flight Wisdom are proud to announce the beta launch of our latest spinoff site…Airporthistory.com.
The ATR Turboprop
Earlier today, September 13th, an ATR-42 turboprop crashed in Venezuela(More on that here). It seemed like a good time to share a few facts about the aircraft.
ATR42 Turboprop Crashes in Venezuela
An ATR-42 twin-engine turboprop operated by Conviasa has crashed about twelve minutes after takeoff from the airport in Guayana, Venezuela. The plane had at least forty-seven people onboard, and twenty-three passengers were taken to local hospitals. Of those, up to eleven have died. There are some conflicting reports about the number onboard, injured, and deceased, and we will update as more definite numbers come in.
Airlines Finally Figure Out People Hate 50-seater Regional Jets
We’ve never been particularly fond of fifty seater regional jets. They don’t have the comfort that we desire in an airline experience. It is not that we object to a smaller aircraft, but merely the idea that a smaller aircraft has to be a significantly less pleasant experience than a larger one.
Steven Slater is No Longer with JetBlue: Tensions in the Sky
NBC New York has reported that a spokesperson for JetBlue has said that flipped out flight attendant Steven Slater is no longer with the airline, bringing an end, hopefully, to the Steven Slater saga. But that still leaves many flight attendants who wouldn’t do what he did, still frustrated in the sky.
JetBlue to Add Boston to Newark Service – What is their Strategy?
JetBlue has announced an intention to fly from Newark Liberty Airport to Boston’s Logan Airport with four daily roundtrips effective May 2011. People often forget JetBlue is at Newark, but look at JetBlue in the New York area. Other than their hub at Kennedy Airport, they serve