Qantas Offering San Francisco to Vancouver Service

One doesn’t normally think of Qantas as flying service from the United States to Canada. But during the busy travel season in December and January, they are offering fares starting at $119 each way and do not require round trip travel. The fares are only valid on Qantas Flight 73, departing San Francisco at 12:00PM…

Boeing Stretches 747 to Increase Capacity

The Associated Press reports that Boeing will be lengthening the new version of its 747 widebody to compete with the Airbus 380 and squeeze in 17 seats. The new 747-8 Intercontinental will seat 467 people and will be 250 feet, 8 inches long. The current 747-400 seats 416 people. The 747 still is a far…

747 Bolt Falls from Plane

A Singapore Airlines 747-400 lost a bolt over Sydney, Australia yesterday. the 10-inch-long bolt fell through a man’s roof while he was eating breakfast. The airline has grounded the aircraft for a full inspection and will be working with Boeing to investigate how such a thing might have happened. Fortunately, no one was hurt, and…

Delta Announces Nonstop Service Between Boston and Chicago-Midway

Delta announced on Monday they would be inaugurating service from Boston’s Logan Airport and Chicago-Midway effective January 11, 2007. The service, operated by Comair, will offer three flights on weekdays and two on weekends using 50-seater regional jets. Chicago-Midway Airport is where the majority of the low-cost carriers operate their service. Airtran already operates Boston…

CNBC’s Inside American Airlines Documentary

This evening, October 18th, CNBC aired Inside American Airlines: A Week In The Life. American granted access to documentary crews on all levels, allowing them to talk to passengers, position cameras in flight, and in many private areas. They covered, to name a few: Frequent Flyers Cargo Maintenance Reservations Management Union Issues We found it…

Boarding Pass Faxing Service

Northwest announced today that customers may now print their boarding passes at international fax machines after checking in for flights over the Internet, in addition to the domestic faxing added in July 2005. We have never taken advantage of this service, preferring to print our boarding passes directly to our printers. It is a valuable…

Jetblue Inaugurates New Service from Boston

Today, Jetblue began nonstop service between Boston and Raleigh-Durham as well as Boston and Columbus, OH. These services, complementing Jetblue’s service from its New York hub, operate once daily with Jetblue’s 100-seat Embraer 190s. For more information including the timetable, Jetblue’s press release is available here.

TSA sends out Religious Advisory

We are always hunting around the net looking for blogs with interesting articles to bring to our readership. Six Kids and a Full Time Job provided the below TSA Statement of Guidance, sent from the TSA about a recent Jewish religious observance. “STATEMENT OF GUIDANCE: Succot is a significant religious holiday for Jews. It is…

We’re So Wonderful…We’ll Pay You to Fly Us – Or Close

As Upgrade Travel reports, Brataslavia-based discount airline SkyEurope is offering negative fares. This promotion, which started today and runs through the 22nd, prices their fare at -1 euro. Thus, not only do they make no profit, but they’ll pay one euro of your taxes. Even SkyEurope refers to it as the “most crazy promotion ever.”…

Flight Wisdom 2.0

Today we are proud to announce the first phase of a new Flight Wisdom main website. It is a tremendous improvement over the old website in various ways and uses state-of-the-art content management software to autoindex and arrange our content. Bookmark it, as we will be adding new material and updates to it over the…

Jetblue Wins Victories

As Today in the Sky reports, The FAA approved Jetblue’s application for four daily flights from Chicago-O’Hare, arrival authorizations at 8:30, two at 11, and 4. However, Jetblue must initiate service by October 28, and flight operations by January 27, 2007. Jetblue is likely to operate at least some of the flights to its Kennedy…

Wright Amendment Reform Act Approved by Congress, President, and FAA

As Southwest reports in a press release, Southwest Airlines this morning celebrated the phased-out repeal of the Wright Amendment with the rollout of new connecting service for Love Field. By this Thursday, passengers can take full advantage of 25 new destinations on Southwest from Dallas Love Field Airport: Baltimore/Washington, Chicago Midway, Cleveland, Columbus, Denver, Detroit,…

Disturbing Trends in Overbooking Air Travel

As Today in the Sky reports, more than 185,000 passengers were involuntarily bumped off airline flights during the second quarter of 2006, a 40% increase over the same period in 2005. It is the highest second-quarter figure since 2000. The number of fliers who gave up seats on flights rose 10%. We suggest you read…

An Airline Pitching Service

The Globe and Mail reported today on Porter Airlines. Porter is a recent Canadian upstart run by Donald Carty, a former American Airlines CEO. He held executive positions with American and its parent AMR Corporation from 1978 through 2003, which certainly qualifies him to be chairman of an airline. He is also the chairman of…

Must We Remind You?

We follow SeekingAlpha and their coverage of financial issues for a variety of reasons. In a recent article, as part of their Sound Money Tips column, they reminded us of the importance of travel insurance. We continue to emphasize this ourselves. They advise the following three hints: Read the fine print – Unless you know…

Airlines Eye International Expansion

Today, Northwest and Delta both announced expansion plans. As the Associated Press notes in regards to Northwest, airline consultant Alan Sbarra said that expansion fits with a policy now popular amoung US carriers of “avoiding competition by going to Europe.” The push to offer more international service could possibly increase competiton and thus lower fares…

Northwest Announces International Expansion

Today, as Delta announced its international expansion, Northwest announced its first major expansion since bankruptcy. Since the two carriers declared bankruptcy at the same time, Northwest seems to like to announce things the same day Delta does. Delta has had an aggressive international expansion plan since bankruptcy. Northwest, however, has engaged in very little in…

Delta Expands its Product

Flightglobal.com reports that Delta will be the US launch customer for the Boeing 777-200LR. The two are converted from a previous 200ER order previously placed by Delta. The first of this type of aircraft was delivered to Pakistan Internation Airlines in February. Air Canada has 11 on order. Delta may also accept additional deliveries as…

Airbus Tries to Pull Itself Out of Hole

Airbus’s chief executive, Louis Gallois, who took the position on Monday, warned that “painful” job cuts would be needed to turn the aircraft manufacturer around. Gallois replaced Christian Streiff, who resigned after less than 100 days on the job. As the Independent reports, Gallois pledged to proceed with the new A350 mid-sized jet, needed to…

Northwest Orders New Aircraft

We recently wrote on the subject of Northwest’s aircraft purchase. We are pleased to announce that Northwest has begun its order with 72 jets. Northwest has ordered 36 Embraer 175s to be flown by their new subsidiary, Compass Airlines as well as an additional order for 36 Bombardier CRJ-900 jets to be flown by a…

Northwest to Order New Planes

The Associated Press reports that Northwest Airlines is expected to make a large order for regional jets in the next few weeks. Not only has it launched its new subsidiary, Compass Airlines, for its regional flying, it needs to replace 105 ancient DC-9 aircraft. The DC-9 began service in 1965, and evolved design-wise into the…

New Aircraft Developments

Boeing has emphasized its view of the future in the development of the 787 Dreamliner. It is made of lightweight and durable composites including advanced aluminum alloys. The most important goal of the Dreamliner is an increase in fuel efficiency. Seeking Alpha summarizes the development of the Boeing aircraft, which is 33% made in the…

In Flight Yoga

Not long ago, we wrote a summary of in-flight exercises. InFlightHQ.com…ironically sponsored by Boeing Connexion, posted this…on inflight yoga, linking to a podcast that walks one through doing yoga on an aircraft.