We here at Flight Wisdom are not big fans of Kevin Smith. This has nothing to do with his movies. Last year, Kevin Smith went on the offensive against Southwest Airlines over its long-standing customer of size issues, and we were not pleased with many of his comments. Now he’s on against Virgin America and the ten minute rule.
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Our editor is back from his trip. Check out his review on the Auto Train. Meanwhile, back into the swing of things. Lots of business to take care of.
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Helper Monkeys, new site developments, and a Fly Girls editorial….this time on the Flight Wisdom Briefing
Virgin America Flight 404 circled JFK till it was diverted to Stewart Airport in Newburgh, which is also run by the Port Authority of NY & NJ, as is JFK, Newark, and LaGuardia, to refuel and wait out the weather. This is hardly out of the ordinary. But as the hours passed, supplies grew slim, tempers frayed, and things started to come to a boil.
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.
[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…
Image by Getty Images via Daylife Airline Route Updates has a comprehensive list of the new JetBlue-Lufthansa codeshare, found here. The flight numbers will be between LH8500 and 8700 and cover both Boston and New York-JFK routes. Booking are already open for service on or after November 1st. Also effective today, South African Airlines will…
[caption id="attachment_1711" align="alignleft" width="225" caption="In Flight Service - Virgin America"][/caption] Here is the news: The CW announced today that its new docu-series Fly Girls, which gives a glimpse into the lives of five “beautiful Virgin America flight attendants,” is set to debut midseason. The network describes the series as being “about real, down-to-earth young women…
The Middle Seat Terminal blog reports that the rate at which passengers were bumped in the second quarter of this year increased forty percent compared with the same period a year ago. As carriers have slashed capacity to the bone, and with overbooking a common practice, there are too many people crammed onto flights.
[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…
Image via Wikipedia Jetblue and Virgin America decided to announce San Francisco to Ft. Lauderdale service. Jetblue will begin service on November 17th, with a redeye flight leaving San Francisco 11:30PM and arriving 7:50AM, returning at 7:15PM and arriving at 10:35PM. In between, JetBlue can deploy the plane on its east coast network. Connections will…
Image by Getty Images via Daylife Tomorrow, Jaunted reminded us, is the two year anniversary of Virgin America. Tomorrow, the Mayor of San Francisco is even declaring it “Virgin America Day.” There isn’t much we can say about Virgin America. They are based in San Francisco, and fly from there to Seattle, Boston, New York-JFK,…
Image by Getty Images via Daylife Effective December 17th until April 12th, US Airways will add seasonal nonstop service from Phoenix to Montego Bay, Jamaica. The flights will operate four weekly flights on Airbus A319s. It is the first nonstop destination in the Caribbean from their Phoenix hub. They already serve Montego Bay from Philadelphia…
Image by jasonEscapist via Flickr Effective today, the people at Virgin America announced changes to their fee structures. Their fee for changes will be reduced from $75 to $50. We’re hoping other airlines reduce their change fees as well. A $150 average fee for changes on reservations valued much less is ridiculous and hard to…
The people at JetBlue sent us a lovely message yesterday… We understand it’s not easy being a high flyer these days. The CFO is picking apart your expense reports. Congress is mad about your bonus. And you can’t even hop on a private jet to the Cayman Islands without freaking out the shareholders. But even…
Happy Valentine’s Day to all those who celebrated it yesterday. Now, let’s give a little love to a few airlines. Israel’s El Al Airlines will add its first new destination in 10 years. On May 2nd, it will begin nonstop service between Tel Aviv and Sao Paulo, Brazil, operating three nonstop flights a week using…
[caption id="" align="alignright" width="202" caption="Image via Wikipedia"][/caption] Airlines are constantly looking at new forms of technology. How they can automate processes, how theycan add features to increase their competitiveness… Brett Snyder, the Cranky Flier himself, visited LiveTV, the In-Flight Entertainment company which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of JetBlue Airways. They are preparing to start installing…
[caption id="" align="alignright" width="240" caption="Image by Jose P Isern Comas via Flickr"][/caption] Responding to “Obama fervor”, AirTran Airways is adding more flights to Washington D.C. for the inauguration. On January 21st, following the inauguration, they will increase service from Baltimore Washington to Atlanta and Milwaukee and Washington Dulles to Atlanta. United is launching service from…
[caption id="" align="alignright" width="240" caption="Image by Luigi Rosa via Flickr"][/caption] For those of you who have noticed a change in our style over the last few entries, we’ve added Zemanta support to our blog. Zemanta is a blogging service that provides recommended articles and public domain imagery to a blog entry, giving you, our readers,…
Virgin America and HBO today launched the airline’s new nonstop service from New York’s JFK airport to Las Vegas, Nevada and will unveil “Entourage Class” on the airline as well as the advance screening in flight of Season 5 of the HBO original series Entourage. Virgin America flies to seven cities, including: SFO to LAX,…
Happy Eighth Birthday to JetBlue Airways. Who would have thought they’d grow so fast so quickly? Remembering the good old days when we flew them between Rochester, NY and JFK… Alaska Airlines and Horizon have announced they have selected Seattle-based Jones Soda Co as their new drink partner. The airlines will offer customers complimentary canned…
Lot Polish Airlines has signed a deal for 12 additional Embraer 175 jets plus two options and ten purchase rights. The layout of the aircraft will include 82 elite seats, and the plan is to use them to ‘right-size’ aircraft based on seasonal or specific time-of-day influences on routes. Jetblue inaugurated its St. Maarten-JFK service…
We remained quiet about the issue of in-flight internet of late. Certainly, it is controversial. We think it is a better alternative than allowing voice communication on aircraft. Let people quietly text away, send email, etc. Of course, people will abuse this service. We recently heard of a problem on a coach bus that provided…
Eos Airlines announced that every guest who registers and purchases a round-trip ticket between October 31st and November 16th will receive either a Nintendo game system or bonus points in their loyalty progam. Fares of $4000 or above will get a Wii or 40,000 points. Fares below that will receive a DS Lite or 20,000…