A man desperate to keep his girlfriend from boarding a flight from Ft. Myers to New York called in a bomb threat for her airplane Wednesday afternoon. Christian G. Mejia, age 23, was arrested after he dropped off his girlfriend and her travelling companion to an airport and drove to a pay phone and called the police, reporting he’d heard two women talk about putting a bomb on the plane and gave their descriptions. Will people never learn?
Obviously not as customs officers in Cairo have detained a man trying to smuggle 700 live snakes on a plane bound for Saudi Arabia. The man told them his carryon bag contained the snakes after being asked to open it. Among them hidden in small cloth sacks were two poisonous cobras. Police confiscated the snakes and arrested him for violating export laws and endangering the lives of other passengers.
Expedia began offering Jetblue Airways inventory to its customers.
Airbus is set to make another design change to its A350XWB, changing composite panels on an aluminum frame for an all-composite barrel. The A350 has received numerous overhauls and redesigns for nearly three years and seems to be making little progress toward completion of the A350…which it needs to compete with Boeing’s best selling 777 and 787 aircrafts.
USA Today has a good article on the innards of the 787 Dreamliner. It will have much less wiring than the 767, of which it is a similar size, with only 61 miles of wiring as opposed to 91, which will make it cheaper and opening up space for more overhead and elbow room for passengers. New components for in flight and control electronics have reduced weight which reduce costs. Comfort improvements include software to allow the plane to respond more quickly to wind gusts to avoid motion sickness for passengers, cabin lighting that can simulate a sunrise to spare passengers a sudden jolt of bright lights after an overnight flight, the first air purification system to remove contaminants from the air…for more, check out the article.
A lightning strike Sunday evening forced Jetblue flight 43 from Rocheste, NY to JFK Airport to make an emergency landing. The plane, carrying 140 passengers, caused a burning smell to enter the cabin. Ultimately, it got the passengers into JFK 20 minutes early.
A flight from the UK to Portugal over the weekend was forced to make an emergency landing after a swarm of bees was sucked into the 737’s engine on takeoff.
Alaska Airlines will offer daily Seattle to Cancun nonstop service starting October 28th. The service is currently four times per week.
American Eagle will offer new service from Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport and Washington’s National Airport beginning September 5th. Service will be offered using 37-seat ERJ135 jets.
American Eagle will also offer new service from Chicago O’Hare to Okaloosa Regional Airport in Ft. Walton Beach, Florida with a new daily flight beginning September 5th. The service will use a 50-seat ERJ145 regional jet.
Horizon Air reduced fares up to 76 percent on many routes. The reductions apply to routes of up to 163 miles, including flights between Bozeman and Butte, Mont.; Great Falls and Helena, Mont.; Kalispell and Missoula, Mont.; Eureka/Arcata and Redding, Calif.; Eugene and Redmond/Bend, Ore.; Pullman, Wash., and Lewiston, Idaho; and Pendleton, Ore., and Pasco, Wash. They also apply to the nonstop service between Bozeman, Mont., and Idaho Falls, Idaho, Horizon is launching on July 22, 2007.
Lan Airlines launched nonstop service between New York and Los Angeles to Santiago, Chile with continuing service to Buenos Aires, Argentina yesterday. Lan currently offers service to Santiago via Lima, Pera(six times weekly from NY and twice weekly from LA). The new service will be three weekly from NYC and five from LA.
Midwest Airlines will offer two classes of seats on all flights by next year. It will include wide, leather “Signature” seats arranged in rows of two, and smaller “Saver” seats. The seats will be available this fall on its MD-80 aircraft, and mid-2008 on its Boeing 717 aircraft. Airtran issued a press release commenting how flattered they were that Midwest was imitating the Airtran model…as it is the same one they have used for years. In Midwest’s defense…no other US carrier uses Boeing 717 aircraft. Airtran has been trying to acquire Midwest for some time now.
American Airlines will offer nonstop service from New York’s LaGuardia Airport and Minneapolis-St. Paul effective September 5th using its MD80 aircraft with three daily roundtrip flights. American will compete with Northwest. Northwest has been known for harshly defending incursions onto its routes. American has been building up LaGuardia with service to fortress hubs of competitors. In recent times, it has added Charlotte(US Airways), Atlanta(Airtran/Delta), Cincinnati(Delta).
Meanwhile, American will upgrade service between Chicago and JFK on September 5th to two trips operated by MD80 aircraft and one operated by regional jet. Service on the route has increased since Jetblue inaugurated service using its fleet of Embraer 190s. Delta increased its service with additional flights on 50-seaters and now American is adding service. For both carriers, who are building a presence at the airport…it is a logical move.
American Eagle is adding twice daily service from Dallas/Ft. Worth to Roswell, NM using 50-seat ERJ145s, providing the first jet service to Roswell since 1970.
Allegiant is planning new service from Champaign, IL to Las Vegas beginning August 16th on Thursdays and Sundays.
Northwest Airlines flight attendants ratified a new contract. Northwest had voided a contract with its flight attendants during bankuptcy, causing much dissatisfaction. When the company exits bankruptcy this week, it will be the first time no US Airline will be in bankruptcy in five years.
US Airways has signed agreements with NCR to deploy new self-service kiosks at all of its locations. The initial agreement includes 600 replacement kiosks, software, installation services and a three-year maintenance agreement. America West had already moved to these kiosks by Kinetics(NCR’s subsidiary) prior to the merger and the replacement will bring all the kiosks to the same software and hardware. supplier.