As the Detroit Free Press reports, Spirit Airlines is planning to sell advertising inside its new Airbus planes. We reported on our thoughts on this practice with European discounter Ryanair. Spirit’s Chief Marketing Officer said that customers should expect ads from travel-oriented businesses, like rental cars, or high-end brands aimed at fliers with disposable income. …
We were recently reading the 24/7 Wall Street blog, and discovered their take on the Boeing 747 refit. Since the 787 has been such a success in orders due to its fuel-saving design, the 747-8 has incorporated those new designe elements. It is 11% lighter than the A380, comparing the total weight to the number…
As reported elsewhere, a man in California has set up a Halloween display in his front yard simulating the crash of a G3 Gulfsteam. Steve Chambers, a 25-year old aviation mechanic, got the spare parts from his place of business and plans on trying a crashed 747 for next year. The tableau was apparently realistic…
We were quite amused when someone showed us a link to MusicAirport.com. The site is an airport themed internet radio station that chooses music based on the atmosphere of “those beautiful airport lounges.” The musical selection looks reasonably good if you need some generic background music. Just click…and imagine you are at the airport in…
We reported that Southwest launched fares to 25 new cities that it can now make available with one-stop connections out of Dallas-Love Field. We expected American to either downscale or even discontinue its Love Field operations and retreat to its fortress at DFW Airport or make a go with connections out of Love Field competing…
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…
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…
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 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…
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…
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…
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.
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…
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.”…
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…
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…
In several press releases issued over the last day, the various airlines have weighed in on the benefits of their proposed China routes. We briefly touched on the issue in a previous post. United Airlines commented in their press release that a Washington-Beijing service would link the two capitals, and would be the first China…
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,…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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’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…