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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.
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After this Briefing, our editor will be heading on the road for a few days. Lots of interesting things going on, but we’re bringing along our portable recording equipment to report on it.
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Today, we introduce a new opener for the Briefing, recorded by special guest announcer, the Bow-Tied Blogger. Comments are welcome.
Back in August, Delta Air Lines and US Airways announced a deal to give Delta dominance at LaGuardia in exchange for Delta helping US Airways dominate Washington-National. The DOT advised that in order for them to approve the transaction, the airlines would have to divest a certain number of slots at each airport in order for it to be approved. This week, the two airlines shot back with their own proposal. They will transfer up to five slot pairs each to AirTran, Spirit, and Westjet at LaGuardia. And at National, they will transfer five slot pairs to JetBlue.
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The British Airways strike continues, new and interesting news from Delta, and a blast from the past.
Delta Air Lines announced on Thursday that they would add a new business shuttle service between New York-LaGuardia and Chicago-O’Hare beginning June 10th. The service will replace existing service between LaGuardia and Chicago-Midway. That isn’t unique, it is the fact this will be the first addition to the Delta Shuttle product in years.
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Lots of exciting new service in this briefing. We have tried a few different variations of our opening and closing. We’ll continue to mix it up a bit, but if you have any suggestions on how to improve the Briefing, please contact us.
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This is Briefing 6. Welcome to our new subscribers on iTunes. Since last time, we did a bit of a movie opener in honor of Peter Graves and Airplane, we decided to try another random one that had been lurking in our heads. Feel free to tweet or comment with the movie title if you recognized it. We’ll continue to adjust the opening and closing until we find one or several with enduring amusement. If this is how it sounds at Brief 6, imagine how good we’ll be at it by Brief 60. Keep listening.
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Image by Dave Sizer via Flickr As we continue to perfect the Brief, we offer a new opener, as well as a tribute to this Day in Aviation History. Tune in. Notes: American Eagle’s New Service to Augusta WestJet Launches New Frequent Flier Program 787 Begins First Flight Tests outside of Washington United orders 25…
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For those of you who enjoyed the first brief, here’s the second one. If you want to subscribe to the brief in your podcatcher, our podcast only RSS feed is here.
Enjoy the latest in airline service changes.
On Friday, a passenger on a Northwest flight set off a small explosive device shortly before landing in Detroit. The man, Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab, was subdued. He had connected in Amsterdam to the flight from a KLM flight inbound from Lagos, Nigeria. He had been rescreened in Amsterdam, as is standard procedure there. The device failed to fully detonate, and has been described as a mixture of liquid and powder, and were described as more incendiary than explosive.
We’re sad to say that we haven’t flown on Delta much lately. For years, Delta was almost all we flew. We have a bunch of Skymiles, enough for a flight. But, then, other airlnes came to town, with new options, and we didn’t spend as much time with Delta. And our Skymiles were set to expire before we could enjoy our 50,000+ miles.
The Twin Cities Pioneer Press reports that the two pilots who overflew Minneapolis last week have advised the NTSB that the reason they lost track of time they were “discussing the new monthly crew flight scheduling system.” The system was put in place as part of Northwest’s merger with Delta Air Lines. They both admitted accessing their personal laptops while they discussed this, something which is in violation of company policy.
Image via Wikipedia Welcome to another additional of roundup. Today we have some continuing news and route developments. Remember, for more details/information, a link appears to a press release or other story inside each notice. This week, AirTran announced increases to its winter Florida schedule. Daily flights will be added to both Orlando and Ft.…
[caption id="" align="alignright" width="231" caption="Alaska Airlines Arrives at Houston"][/caption] This is a busy month for us, and it is often hard to keep up on things. So we want to try to catch up on some route developments over the last few days we may have missed. Matching competitor AirTran, Delta Air Lines will inaugurate…
[caption id="attachment_1711" align="alignright" width="225" caption="In Flight Service - Virgin America"][/caption] A lot happened while we were away. As we said in our Virgin America trip report, Every Plane should have In-Flight Wi-Fi. But, we felt there were a few things we didn’t mention during the trip report. There was actually a lot we didn’t mention.…
Image via Wikipedia As part of our continuing coverage of Slotgate ’09(just kidding), we’re going to review some of what is going on down at National Airport. US Airways is gaining slots for 42 additional daily roundtrips at the airport. They will be adding new service to fifteen destinations, eight of which are new to…
Image by mtsofan via Flickr So, now Continental has gotten AirTran out of Newark in exchange for slots at LaGuardia and National, where they are hardly a powerhouse. Delta is taking over US Airways extensive regional slots at LaGuardia, and US Airways is getting international route permissions and greater dominance at Washington National. It allows…
[caption id="attachment_1663" align="alignright" width="300" caption="The Marine Air Terminal, circa 1940 (Courtesy Library of Congress)"][/caption] The saga of LaGuardia Airport began when Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia struck a blow for all proud New Yorkers when he refused to call Newark Airport New York. LaGuardia was flying on a TWA flight which arrived into Newark, and pointing out…
Image via Wikipedia US Airways will be transferring 125 pairs of slots currently used to provide US Airways Express service at LaGuardia to Delta Air Lines. They will be getting 42 pairs of slots at Washington National. The plan will allow US Airways to expand service at National Airport and acquire the rights to fly…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqZKpCJEqNE Northwest Airlines insists it has exclusive trademark rights to the word Northwest. The airline is going after GoNorthwest.com, which provides tourist information on the Pacific Northwest. Originally, they insisted owner Jack High shut down, then they moderated their response to merely giving up trademark rights and not expanding. High registered his trademark, which looks…
Image by caribb via Flickr An Israeli woman, unwilling to travel without her dog by her side, purchased the entire business class section on an El Al flight from Paris to Tel Aviv. It is the first time she and the dog have flown since 2006. The dog suffered severe anxiety after flying alone in…
Image via Wikipedia We’re slowly inching toward our goal of reaching 1000 posts. We hope you’ve been enjoying our increased efforts. Air Canada yesterday inaugurated service from Montreal to Fort-de-France, Martinique. The service will be offered on Saturdays until August 29th, and then will recommence on a year-round basis on December 5th. Alaska Airlines inaugurated…
New service is proudly announced, but cancellations are usually not. One day, we discover that a flight we recall is no longer on the books. Of late, many flights are being cancelled, airlines are slashing capacity. Air Canada launched its Portland, Oregon to Calgary, Alberta service yesterday. The service, operated by 50-seater CRJs, operates once…