Ff you are a reader and want us to feature one of your stories, we are eager to. Here’s our rundown and synopsis of some of the recent ones we gleaned from other blogs…most from the Consumerist. Virgin Atlantic charged one passenger $110 for a seat upgrade, and gave the same seat to another passenger…
American Airlines will be upgrading Boeing 757 aircraft, of which it has 124 in its fleet, over the next two years. The enhancements will include new economy cabin suits, new sidewalls, new LCD monitors to replace the CRTs for inflight entertainment, and new digital media file servers for better in-flight audio and video entertainment quality.…
Skybus began to sell tickets this morning. As their press release mentions, at least 10 seats on every flight will be offered at $10(excluding taxes and fees). All flights will be operated by Airbus 319 aircraft and all destinations…for now, will be served nonstop from Columbus, OH…their hub. On May 22nd, service will begin to…
Investigators say that fatigued air traffic controllers contributed to four aviation mishaps in recent years…including the Comair crash. They are calling on the FAA to revise work schedules and take other action. Their union jumped on the report as validation of its own claims that air traffic controllers are overworked and understaffed. Details available here.…
Continental Airlines announced Friday it now has interline eticketing capabilties with all Alliance partners now that it has implemented them with Air Europa. All codeshare, Skyteam, planned Skyteam associates, and frequent flyer partners are now complete. They expect to eliminate issuing and accepting paper tickets by the end of the year, in accordance with IATA’s…
Airtran Airways will be expanding service from Las Vegas to Dayton(three times weekly), Canton/Akron(three times weekly), Flint(four times weekly), and Rochester(three times weekly) effective August 15th. Delta will be returning to service from JFK to Tel Aviv effective March 10th, complementing its Atlanta service. The new service will be operated with 767-300ER aircraft. We were…
US Airways and Northwest Airlines have received temporary liquor licenses from the state of New Mexico and are once again selling alcohol on flights to and from the state. Expressjet, which just opened its service, plans to sell alcohol in the air before it gets its license, taking the same view as other carriers that…
We recently read a fascinating article dated April 5th on the subject of Jetblue and its service issues from the perspective of the recently hired CIO, who went through it. We heartily recommend it. It attributes the bulk of Jetblue’s problems to issues with its information infrastructure…systems that had not previously been tested under these…
A white mouse onboard a Japan-bound Vietnam Airlines flight delayed the flight for four hours. The rodent had to be seized as a matter of safety. It was theorized it might have been brought on in carry-on luggage. On Thursday, Pinnacle Airlines, which operates as Northwest Airlink, was involved in an incident as Flight 4712…
Jetblue is adding Saturday service from Boston to Aruba to complement its JFK service effective June 30th. It will also add service from Boston to San Diego once daily effective June 28th. Connections will be available to its partner, Cape Air. Southwest Airlines will be adding one additional daily nonstop flight between Albuquerque and Dallas…
After United announced it would impose a $10 fare surcharge to all passengers travelling through Los Angeles International Airport(LAX), the Los Angeles World Airports(LAWA), the parent agency of the airport, issued a press release condemning the action as “exploiting a justified increase in its maintenance and operations costs in order to dramatically increase profits on…
Four fighter jets, two F-15s and two F-16s, were dispatched to inspect a Continental Airlines Boeing 777 today from Newark to Tel Aviv which failed to make contact with Air Traffic Control and comply with international regulations as it approached Israeli airspace. The fighters incepted the Flight 90, carrying 251 passengers, once it reached the…
United will add a $10 surcharge for all passengers out of LAX to offset a $10 million rent increase imposed by the Los Angeles World Airports effective immediately. United is one of several airlines suing LAWA, which runs LAX, over the increase and has decided to encourage public outrage by making the passenger pay the…
ATA announced last week that it would acquire World Air Holdings, which owns charter carriers World Airways and North American Airlines. North American, based at JFK, offers some regularly scheduled service. World Air Holdings did not acquire North American that long ago itself. The airlines would be operated as three separate airlines under one corporate…
Northwest regional affiliate Pinnacle is suspending flights from Kalamazoo to Minneapolis until May 2nd to give the airline time to hire and train additional pilots. Apparently 20 of their pilots took jobs with larger, mainline carriers and they are trying to find replacements. Meanwhile, Northwest has also been cleared to begin operations at Compass, its…
Northwest cancelled flight 1190 from Las Vegas to Detroit yesterday over the behavior of its captain. The captain was on a cell phone, and at some point during the boarding process, left the cockpit and went into the lavatory, locked the door, and continued his conversation. The conversation could be heard through the door by…
Bruce Schneier has announced his Second Annual Movie Plot Threat Contest…and we’re aiming to win the prize…one of his books autographed… Our goal: invent a terrorist plot to hijack or blow up an airplane with a commonly carried item as a key component. The component should be so critical to the plot that the TSA…
The Cranky Flier has a featured interview between him and Josh Marks, the Senior Vice-Preisdent of Planning and Development for MAXjet. MAXjet is a business-class only airline that started service between New York-JFK and London-Stansted airport in 2005. They offer the “perks of international Business Class (fast check-in and security clearance, spacious departure lounges, deep-recline…
The Consumerist, of which we are an avid reader, posted on the subject of Rule 240…however, we felt their post was somewhat brief on what Rule 240 meant, and decided to revisit the issue. We approached it in a post in September. To reiterate, Rule 240 has no power post-deregulation. Deregulation occurred in 1978. Many…
When we are on a plane, we enjoy reading through the Skymall catalog, which is full of interesting things we have to admit we’ve drooled over, but never gotten around to purchasing. Try this coupon for them… SkyMall – Save $5 no minimum. Some restrictions apply. We’ve placed a Skymall button on the site for…
Southwest Airlines has reupped for another three years of serving Coca-Cola company products, which will extend their offering through 2011. Under the terms of the agreement, Coca-Cola North America will continue to be the beverage provider for Southwest, supplying soft drinks including Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite and Sprite Zero, Seagram’s mixers, and Minute Maid juices…
A flight from Philadelphia to Rome had to return to Philadelphia two hours into the flight because of a computer glitch in a backup navigation computer. The passengers are being reaccomodated as best possible to their final destinations.
United Airlines and bmi have applied to the United States Department of Transportation to combine their transatlantic operations. The two carriers have no overlapping nonstop service and would take advantage of the open skies pact. Both carriers are members of the Star Alliance. The agreement would only merge their transatlantic operations. Other operations would remain…
The Coalition for Luggage Security once again sounded its trumpet call to require travellers to voluntarily ship their luggage from domestic air travel prior to departure. To be fair, we had a look at Universal Express’s Luggage Express pitch. They plan to charge $70 per piece of dropped off luggage of $85 per pick-up. In…
Some days in the airline industry, it seems a neverending stream of negative publicity. Here are a few things we caught over the last few days. It fails to inspire us. (Note: In every one of our roundups, links to a news source are provided for each item. Feel free to click through for more…