NBC New York has reported that a spokesperson for JetBlue has said that flipped out flight attendant Steven Slater is no longer with the airline, bringing an end, hopefully, to the Steven Slater saga. But that still leaves many flight attendants who wouldn’t do what he did, still frustrated in the sky.
As a courtesy, we’ve often reclined our seat as little as possible unless the person in front of us reclines theirs. So, perhaps we weren’t as uncomfortable with the idea when it was revealed that Spirit Airlines was installing “pre-reclined” seats. Using the term pre-reclined to describe a seat that does not move is like calling a door you’ve removed from its hinges pre-opened.
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This week, Flight Wisdom and the entire Weneca Media Group family are celebrating National Library Week. Support your local library.
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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.
The Examiner reports that Continental Airlines will end its free meal program on flights shorter than six hours. We always find it amusing that companies, airline or not, spin taking away services that were previously free and replacing them with a paid option as an improvement for their customers. Certainly, we demand that if we pay for it, it be a better quality experience, but beyond that…
We’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the issues of regional jets. Recently, we pointed out how the Colgan Crash last year had brought to light several issues with the system of regional carriers. The Regional Airline system is based on the idea that a major carrier, let’s say Continental, can subcontract out its work to a regional carrier, like Colgan Air. The plane is painted in Continental colors, in little tiny letters by the door it says, “operated by Colgan Air.” It used to be, without such airlines and their smaller planes, airlines would never serve certain routes, especially into smaller cities.
Earplanes are Air Pressure Regulating Earplugs that help with pain causes by pressure changes. Our editor bought a pair of them a while back, after flying with a cold and spending two days afterward barely hearing anything, and have been waiting to try them out.
[caption id="attachment_1704" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Leather seats with Headrests"][/caption] Virgin America is testing the idea of letting passengers who are traveling without carry-on luggage board the plane first. Now, we aren’t sure of the exact details. We assume personal items wouldn’t count, and this would be limited to actual luggage. Few people travel with only the…
There have been some interesting developments in In-Flight Entertainment and Wi-Fi this week, many reported by IFE beat reporter, Mary Kirby, aka RunwayGirl, often called the Queen of IFE.
Image via Wikipedia Lufthansa is bringing back in-flight wi-fi. As reported by Upgrade Travel, Lufthansa will be the first transatlantic carrier to put out a comprehensive plan for wi-fi connectivity after Boeing discontinued its in-flight wi-fi offering. Lufthansa’s system, called Flynet, is Panasonic-based, and uses a satellite based network, like Row 44, which is working…
Image by dyobmit via Flickr The FAA admitted last week that airlines whose flight attendants had been telling passengers to keep their items out of the seatback pocket were ‘following their guidance’. However, several carriers have never heard of this regulation and have no plans to enforce it. Even the FAA spokesman did not initially.…
[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.…
[caption id="attachment_1703" align="alignleft" width="135" caption="Interior of Virgin America A320"][/caption] We have always wanted to try Virgin America. And yesterday, we finally got the chance, flying from LAX to JFK. And we have to say, Virgin America’s technology is something every airline should be aspiring toward, although it is by no means perfect. Every airline we…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjHCc6TZhaM Thomson Airways has begun using a new in-flight safety video using children between the ages of five and nine. People are finding the video much more captivating than its predecessor. It isn’t the first time an airline has tried something new to encourage people to pay attention during an in-flight video. Air New Zealand…
Image by Pylon757 via Flickr A Continental Airlines flight from Brazil to Texas hit turbulence early this morning, injuring at least 26 people, 4 of them seriously. Continental reports that the fasten seatbelt sign was on at the time. The aircraft, a Boeing 767, had 168 passengers and 11 crew onboard and made an emergency…
Image via Wikipedia We love inflight wi-fi. We haven’t had the chance to experience it of late, but we have tentatively planned to try it out on a transcontinental flight last month. But, the following should help those flying, including ourselves, for the rest of the summer of 2009. Gogo is offering 50% off on…
Image via Wikipedia Now, we recently got some interesting comments on our post on Fastening Seatbelts. Hi! Flight Attendant here: ) You’re right, FAs are informers not enforcers, but as you said it is a federal offense not adhere to FAs instructions. Although, I have never seen a FA call the authorities over a passenger…
In the final installment of our series on our time on Southwest, we explore the process onboard. Southwest is known for its friendly and enthusiastic in-flight crew. The flight crew was very cooperative with our obsessive picture taking. The flight itself was uneventful. We had a free seat next to us, which allowed us to…
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…
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]…
Image by jasontho via Flickr Twenty-one passengers were injured recently after a TAM flight hit turbulence on a Miami to Sao Paulo flight. The plane went into a sharp dive, and three people suffered broken bones, and many passengers were slammed into the ceiling. While this situation is an extreme one, on almost every flight…
Image via Wikipedia We’ve stayed somewhat quiet about wi-fi of late. Every morning we get a notice via Twitter from Alaska about which flights have wi-fi that day, and we admit we haven’t had the pleasure of experiencing wi-fi at 30,000 feet, but we are looking forward to it. AirTran announced plans to become the…
Image by afagen via Flickr United Airlines, as you may have heard, has instituted a policy for oversized passengers. To quote United, courtesy of the Middle Seat Terminal: For the comfort and well-being of all our guests, today United has matched eight other U.S. airlines and adopted a new seating policy that requires customers to…
Mr. T, we’re sure, would say, “I pity the fool airline who mistreats their passengers.” Once again, here are some recent tales we’ve noticed of travel experiences. When a man tried to check in for his flight on Spirit, he was told the flight was oversold. When he tried to fly the next day, Spirit…