JetBlue is switching its reservations system from Navitaire to SABRE this weekend. As a matter of practicality, this will cause disruptions. If you are travelling Friday, Saturday or Sunday of this weekend(January 29-31), you may want to show up early.
We did want to followup on last week’s story, where a religious Jewish teen caused a plane to be diverted by praying using his tefillin. In case you missed it the first time, the above is an Associated Press video of the initial announcement. Note the police referring to the device as an “Olfactory.”
President Obama said today that the December 25th attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound flight was not a failure of the U.S. Intelligence gathering system, but a failure to analyze that information and respond to it. Instead of focusing solely on defending the performance of his government, which his predecessor might have done, he came out and said that this was unacceptable and we had to do better. We may not do better, but we choose to respect him for being so direct about making a mistake, if nothing else.
The Irish government is demanding answers after an unsuspecting passenger carried high-grade explosives on a flight to Dublin as part of a botched training exercise. Slovakian Agents planted RDX explosives in the bag of a 49-year old electrician without his knowledge. The explosive was one of eight items planted by the Slovakian authorities in the baggage of unsuspecting passengers at Bratislava airport this past weekend.
Around 5:20PM on January 3rd, a man was observed walking the wrong way down the exit lane out of the secure area of Newark Liberty Airport’s Terminal C. Why no one stopped this man, as we always see a TSA agent stationed at the exit, we do not know. The response of the TSA was to shut down screening, but then two and a half hours later, then ordered the terminal evacuated and all passengers be rescreened. They estimated this would be complete by half past midnight. The event caused a great amount of disruption, as inbound planes were delayed due to lack of gate space, as were outbound planes due to lack of passengers.
This morning, to cap off the TSA Subpoena Saga, blogger Steven Frishling of Flying with Fish appeared on morning show, FOX and Friends.
(“Those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither.” – Benjamin Franklin). Last night, agents of the Transportation Security Administration visited the homes of two aviation bloggers: Steven Frischling, of the popular Flying with Fish blog, and Christopher Elliott, syndicated travel journalist and blogger.
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.
The Houston Chronicle reports that on Tuesday, a pair of otters chewed through their wooden cage and caused a nearly 90 minute delay as employees tried to recapture them. In fact, one employee was injured, although not seriously
Reports are coming in that an American Airlines plane overshot the runway, crashed, and broke in two. Flight 331 was landing in pouring rain at its final destination of Norman Manley Airport in Kingston, Jamaica. We will update this post as we receive additional information. The plane was carrying 148 passengers and 6 crewmembers. Initial…
This morning, the DOT announced a new rule that will take effect in 120 days which would address tarmac delays. The new rule prohibits U.S. airlines operating domestic flights from permitting an aircraft to remain on the tarmac for more than three hours without deplaning passengers, with exceptions allowed only for safety or security or if air traffic control advises the pilot in command that returning to the terminal would disrupt airport operations.
Today, while we are stuck in our homes in the snow, our thoughts are with those stuck at the airports. In preparation for this storm, airlines around the Northeast United States preemptively cancelled flights, airports were closed for hours, and some people are being told it might be days before they get home. At least 800 flights were cancelled in the New York Area alone. We don’t have the magic bullet that will solve all of these problems.
Last night, we upgraded the software that runs this blog to the latest version, which now supports embedded video from a variety of sites. We figured we’d see what sorts of things we could now embed. We’ve been posting Youtube videos for some time, but we’ve never tried some of the other sites. So, courtesy of Hulu, we now are offering you a chance, if you missed it, to experience the CNBC documentary, Inside American Airlines. It is a good documentary that shows a lot of interesting aspects of the industry in general, and American in particular. To those of you outside the U.S., unfortunately, Hulu is U.S. only.
Today is a historic day in the history of flight, one of many, but one we are happy to share with our fellow aviation enthusiasts. We couldn’t be there, so we have sourced some of these pictures from David Parker Brown at AirlineReporter.com.
Allegiant Air announced today that it will move service from ten U.S. cities from Orlando-Sanford Airport(SFB) to Orlando International Airport(MCO), effective February 1st. By March 5th, they will base 5 MD-80s at MCO, which will be their eighth base. The cities, which are roughly a third of the total they serve to Orlando, are:
Last week, the Airline Industry Examiner asked the question Whatever Happened to United’s Friendly Skies? We wonder about that too, although not always specifically in relation to United. For years, United Airlines was the free world’s largest airline. Now they are third.
The first Air France flight to New York using the Airbus A380 landed today. The flight included the 380 winning bidders in an auction that raised 300,000 euros for five humanitarian projects for children in need. The plane will begin daily service on the route from New York-JFK to Paris-Charles de Gaulle on Monday.
We haven’t been writing enough lately. That does happen sometimes when real life interferes with this(which is unfortunately a hobby). Here’s what we’ve been reading about. If Pat Kiernan of New York City based station NY1 can make a name for himself reading the newspaper and running Pat’s Papers online, we can try to see if people like such a feature.
Image via Wikipedia On Friday, the New York Times reported that Congress is starting to take a look at the fact that airlines have been increasingly charging for a variety of services from the checking of luggage to preferential seats. But they aren’t looking at it on behalf of the consumer, they are looking at…
Like ExpressJet a few years ago, Skywest is experimenting with flying under its own brand. But not to the same degree. Skywest has contracted with AirTran. AirTran will handle the sales and get a share of the profit, and Skywest will assume the risk.
Image via Wikipedia JetBlue Airways announced a major expansion in Boston’s Logan Airport. The full schedule of expansion has yet to be announced, but the following highlights are available and will be available for purchase on November 4th. Two Additional Flights to Chicago-O’Hare(Total 3) Two Additional Flights to Raleigh-Durham(Total 3) One Additional Flight to BWI(Total…
The singer, who is Canadian, was flying to Colorado Springs, was forced to fly United again because they were the only carrier he could. For more than an hour on Sunday, he was told he could not leave the international baggage claim area at Denver International Airport, where he had flown from Saskatchewan, because his bag was delayed, not lost, and he had to claim it.
Image via Wikipedia US Airways announced it would lay off 1000 people, approximately 3 percent of its workforce, and focus on four cities and the shuttle service. Here are the details: Reducing Las Vegas from 64 to 36 daily departures – No one is really surprised by this. Las Vegas was a big hub for…
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.
Pilots of a flight from San Diego to Minneapolis ignored radio calls and flew over 150 miles past the airport. The military was even prepared to intercept. All in all, the pilots of Northwest Flight 188 were nonresponsive for 78 minutes, covering a distance of over 600 miles. With all the attempts to contact them, flashing lights in the cockpit, etc, it is a mystery why this was.