Always Read Your Ticket

Last month, a 21-year old German tourist who wanted to visit his girlfriend in Sydney, Australia mistyped his destination on an online travel site. His ticket took him via Portland, Oregon to Billings, Montana, where he realized his mistake just before he was about to board a commuter flight to Sidney, Montana…population 5000. He spent…

Live the Life of a TSA Agent

“Do knee-jerk reactions that limit our freedom of expression and travel make us safer?” – Persuasive Games asks, and has created Airport Security, a game that allows you to inspect each passenger and his luggage and remove forbidden items…as the list of forbidden items changes constantly…Try it out here…

Let Virgin America Fly?

Virgin America is taking its case to the public. The carrier, which shares a brand name with Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, not only has revised its ownership application…hoping to reverse the decision of U.S regulators to deny its bid, but it has established letVAfly.com, a website that allows citizens to automatically email their representative and…

United Amends Mileage Plus Frequent Flyer Program

United announced today that it will amend its mileage policies for its frequent flyer program. Miles that are in accounts that are inactive for eighteen months will expire. United does this in the hope that their “most loyal customers will compete with fewer people for award seats, making it easier for them to redeem.” However,…

Delta Gets in On China Bid Early

Delta Airlines filed an application, the Associated Press reports, with the US Department of Transportation today to get government approval during the next round of China bids for service from its hub at Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International AIrport to Shanghai daily, beginning March 28, 2008. We have no doubt Continental, Northwest, and American…the losers in the…

New Regulations Require Passports for US Entry

As USAToday reminded us, new government regulations will take effect this week, requiring all individuals, including US citizens, to have a passport in order to enter the United States. Previously, a birth certificate or driver’s license was acceptable. Next year, passports will also be required at land and sea crossings, although for regular travellers of…

UPS Expected to Cancel A380 Order

The United Parcel Service(UPS), is expected to cancel the only remaining order for the cargo version of the A380 superjumbo jet. As the Washington Post reports, rumors are that they will cancel the ten plane order sometime next week. In October, UPS began to review its purchase in light of the third delivery delay on…

Boeing Introduces New Interior for 747-8 Intercontinental

Today, Boeing unveiled a life-size display of the interior for the new 747-8 Intercontinental. The 747 has transported passengers for decades. The 747-8 is stretched 18.3 feet from the 747-400 to provide 467 seats in a typical three-class configuration. The new interior configuration offers updates from the designs of later passenger aircraft, like the 787…

Boeing Exceeds Airbus in Orders for First Time in Five Years

Up until last year, Airbus had outsold Boeing in commercial airplanes for five straight years. However, in 2006, Airbus received 790 airplane orders, compared to Boeing’s 1044. Airbus’s problems are blamed on the delays with the Airbus 380, which is two years behind schedule. The redesign of the A350, which failed to compete with Boeing’s…

Delta Considers Resuming JFK-Tel Aviv Flights

A Delta spokesman said today that Delta is seriously considering resuming its New York-Tel Aviv route as part of its international expansion at its JFK hub. Delta has tried this before, most recently in 2001, but suspended it along with a number of other routes after 9/11. We were in the Delta terminal a great…

Save Seventeen Dollars on Each Way on Jetblue

Click the following link, enter in the promotional password SEVENTEEN, and you’ll be able to get a seventeen dollar each way discount on Jetblue. The offer is available until February 14, 2007 at 11:59PM MST for travel to be completed by Feburary 14. Standard fare rules will apply and discount will not be applied if…

Anti-Missile System Tested by Fedex

As KFWB radio reports, a FedEx MD-10 cargo jet equipped with Northrup Grumman’s Guardian anti-missile defense system took off from LAX on Tuesday. During this test phase, which will be until March of 2008, nine MD-10s equipped with the system will be in commercial operation. While these systems are being tested on cargo planes, the…

New Route Roundup

United announced today new service from its Denver hub to Dayton, Ohio(effective April 24); Kalispell, Montana(effective June 7); Huntsville, Alabama(February 14) and resumption of service to Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina(effective April 24). Dayton service will be operated by 70-seater CRJ7s, twice-daily service to Kalispell will be with 50-seater CRJs. Starting April 1, Frontier Airlines will offer…

Advanced Scanning Techniques Not So Perfect

Hundreds of travelers today at Orlando’s McCoy International Airport were screened by machines designed to let passengers keep their shoes on their airport checkpoints. We are very much in favor of this…as no TSA agent has ever been able to tell us the last time anyone cleaned the floors. Of fifty travellers, however, who used…

New Service Roundup

Two New Startup Airlines Seek to Capitalize on the Myrtle Beach vacation market Myrtle Beach Direct Air will start flying March 7 with non-stop flights from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina to Pittsburgh, Newark, and Niagara Falls. It will not be daily service, but two to five flights per week on its routes, operated with Boeing…

Love Lost at Love

American Airlines, having fought with Southwest over the issues of flight freedom from Love Field, offering all manner of incentive on its flights out of that airport, will be pulling its MD-80 mainline service out of the airport. Effective April 10th, American Eagle will take over all service, and American insists, while they are terminating…

Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of Air Florida Disaster

Yesterday was the 25th anniversary of the day Air Florida Flight 90 crashed into the Fourteenth Street bridge on takeoff from Washington’s National Airport. On January 13, 1982, seventy-eight passengers, motorists, and crew members died with only a Air Florida itself didn’t survive the disaster, which was attributed failures in safety protocols associated with deicing.…

Mergers Mergers Everywhere

Visual representations being perhaps the best…the most efficient way to show what might go on is USAToday’s Merger Analysis, summarizing the pros and cons. US Airways has upped its offer for Delta by nearly twenty percent, and Delta continues to oppose takeover. However, although it has pushed ahead with its reorganization plan as a standalone…

St. Louis Airports Low On Traffic

USAToday reported the other day on the loss of service in St. Louis. Over the last decade, commercial airline departures have dropped nearly fifty percent. St. Louis has two airports: St. Louis – Lambert International Airport, the main airport, a former TWA hub and a focus city for American Airlines, and MidAmerica Airport, opened in…

United Reduces Service Levels at Miami

United is considering reducing service once more at Miami International Airport. United was once the second-largest carrier there after American Airlines, the current dominant carrier, and even competed to Latin America, with flights as far south as Brazil and Argentina. At the height of service in 1993, they had 45 daily flights from Miami. United…

It Must Be a Full Moon

The holiday season is always full of craziness. We thought we’d update you on the security insanity of the holiday season. A US Airways passenger was charged with interfering with a flight crew after he unknowingly slapped a federal air marshal on a flight from Washington to Ft. Myers. The man threw a temper tantrum…