Image via Wikipedia In a recent conversation we heard of, a woman talking to an airline representative in regards to a delayed flight due to a mechanical problem with an Airbus aircraft told the airline they should buy Boeing. We found that rather amusing. Boeing and Airbus are both companies that produce good products. No…
We are continuing our series of posts on our Southwest Experience. We got a lot of wonderful material and pictures, and we haven’t even talked about our time onboard yet. To any other airline tempted, if you send us somewhere, we’ll take just as many pictures and talk to as many people as we can…
[caption id="attachment_1224" align="alignleft" width="372" caption="Yemenia Airbus A310, a day before its crash."][/caption] The Yemenia flight is the fifth passenger airline accident this year. In addition to the Air France crash, there was the Colgan Air crash in Buffalo, an accident in Brazil, and another in the Netherlands. The Yemenia plane(the picture is of the exact…
Flight #614 was scheduled to depart New York’s LaGuardia Airport to Chicago-Midway Airport at 8:45AM with an arrival time of 10:40AM. Customers lined up in typical Southwest fashion, by boarding letter and number in front of spaced steel columns. The first passenger, holding Boarding Group A, Position 01, was Darrell Johnson, who had purchased a…
View Larger Map An Airbus 310 operated by Yemenia, the national airline of Yemen, crashed in the Comoros Islands with at least 150 onboard. The plane, Yemenia Flight 626(IY626), en route from Sana’a, the capital of Yemen, to Prince Said Ibrahim airport in Moroni, the capital of Comoros, crashed about an hour from its destination,…
One of the things we’ve always loved about Southwest is the spirit. In fact, Southwest’s mascot, we understand, is even named Spirit. Pictured right, two happy Southwest employees in Spirit costumes. Southwest was ready when we arrived to offer us bagels and a goody bag for being on the inaugural flight. The bag, an insulated…
In Part I, we discussed the new Southwest Airlines check-in counters at New York – LaGuardia, and their unique(for LaGuardia at least). We had a lot of fun in Chicago. Southwest has taken over Gate B4 at LaGuardia. We use the word take over because of the modifications necessary to operate a gate as Southwest.…
We arrived at LaGuardia two hours before our flight. We wanted to see off the Baltimore flight as well. Southwest had generously awarded us a free roundtrip flight to Chicago and an overnight at a downtown hotel. Everything at LaGuardia airport from Southwest is different than what we see from any other airline using the…
Image by Getty Images via Daylife For those of you who haven’t heard, our Twitter account, @FlightWisdom won a trip on the inaugural flight out of New York’s LaGuardia Airport to Chicago’s Midway Airport. Southwest was even shocked they drew our name…to quote their tweet… “wow, can’t believe I just drew @flightwisdom you have 2…
Image via Wikipedia The National Transportation Safety Board revealed within the last five weeks two Airbus 330s have had incidents involving speed sensors. A TAM flight on May 21st from Miami to Sao Paulo, Brazil and a Northwest flight from Hong Kong to Tokyo on June 23rd both lost speed and altitude information. Details are…
Image by ficusrock via Flickr We’ve discussed this before, but a recent article in Gadling prompted us to revisit the issue of the Fasten Seatbelt sign. Flight Attendants are not required to force passengers into seats when . They are required to make them aware of this. Passengers should be up to go to the…
Image via Wikipedia Ryanair is running out of things to eliminate. Now they want to eliminate checked baggage. ‘The Airline Blog’ actually felt this was a good thing, We tend to disagree. Ryanair has already eliminated ticket counters, and charges an insane amount if you can’t check in online, and a charge if you do.…
Image via Wikipedia Boeing will be delaying the first flight of the 787 Dreamliner due to stress where the wings attach to the side of the plane. Executives said that the fixes to the 787 would require only a few small parts to reinforce areas of one to two square inches that displayed excess stress…
Image via Wikipedia Republic Airways, the holding company that owns Republic Airlines, Chautauqua Airlines, and Shuttle America announced that it will sponsor Frontier Airlines in its reorganization plan, after which it would become a wholly owned subsidiary of the group. “Currently in its 15th year of operations, Frontier Airlines is the second-largest jet service carrier…
Image by SP8254 via Flickr Today, we are happy to announce we have spun off our limited reporting on issues involving Amtrak, buses, light rail, and all things transit-y to a new blog, Transit Wisdom. Unfortunately, our first story on the new blog was the latest thoughts on the DC Metro crash of yesterday. We…
Image via Wikipedia Effective November 1st, Southwest Airlines will begin its new Milwaukee service. 3 Daily Roundtrips to Baltimore/Washington – Marshall Airport 3 to Kansas City 2 to Las Vegas 2 to Orlando 1 to Phoenix 1 to Tampa Bay Direct or Connecting service to an additional 49 cities Southwest will be competing with Midwest…
Image via Wikipedia Southwest Airlines unveiled its schedule out until January of next year today. Southwest has, with the help of new scheduling software, been optimizing its flight schedule for increased efficiency. It was this gain that allowed them to open up several cities without any actual growth. On a typical, non-Holiday Sunday this November…
Image via Wikipedia Alaska Airlines announced today the inauguration of service between San Jose, California and Austin, Texas effective September 2nd. They will also be starting Austin to Seattle service on August 3rd. The flight will originate in Portland, replacing a Horizon flight from Portland to San Jose, and continue to/from Austin, using a 737-800.…
Image via Wikipedia Recently, a conversation(if the word is accurate), on Twitter sparked us thinking about the issues related to full flights. Airlines want the flights to be full. More passengers means more revenue. Conversely, we as passengers want the extra room a less than full flight brings. So, how can you enjoy yourself and…
Image by Getty Images via Daylife The recent crash of Air France 447 has created many questions about communications systems on aircraft. One of them being why GPS is not used to keep track of aircraft. The latest discussion involves the design and capabilities of the flight data recorders, also known as the black box(actually…
Air France will pay about $24,500 in initial compensation to the families of each victim of the crash of Air France Flight 447 this month and is providing them with counseling. So far, salvage operations have found around fifty bodies and dozens of pieces of debris, indicating they have pinned down the likely area where…
For those of you interested, an artist in Vancouver has created animations showing the flight paths of Twitter users, using the search term “Just Landed in…” and the home location of the Twitter user, creating the first map of the migration patterns of the traveling Twitterer. Certainly fun. 36 Hours of Twitter Migration [vimeo 4587178]…
Earlier, we were commenting on the lack of pride in customer service as a part of business, specifically referencing United Airlines, among others, and discovered this, a 1989 United commercial on the very same subject. It so perfectly illustrated some of our thoughts. We wonder if someone at United should see it? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZ6Z8kcoi-E
Image by Jennifer Pickens via Flickr “Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The frumious Bandersnatch!” In one of our earlier posts, we commented on the issues of customer service. Three years later, there are much to revisit. Why it is marketing departments…
Image via Wikipedia Boeing is expected to conduct the maiden flight of the 787 Dreamliner this month. The plane has been plagued by delays. When the A380 was plagued by wiring problems, we said that Boeing had to make sure that it got the Dreamliner out on time to ensure the lead it got was…