Westjet

The ash cloud getting you down? Remember, as Bob Ross said...clouds are very, very free. A special shoutout to regular listener Steven Frischling, of the Flying with Fish blog, who compared the delivery style of the Briefing with the Joy of Painting. Perhaps we should rename the Briefing to the Joy of Flying.
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Greetings from the Flight Wisdom Summer Palace. Today's briefing is hosted by the Infrequent Flier. If you enjoyed his presentation of the news, please drop him a line on Twitter @Infrequentflier.
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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...
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Image by Dave Sizer via Flickr As we continue to perfect the Brief, we offer a new opener, as well as a tribute to this Day in Aviation History. Tune in. Notes: American Eagle’s New Service to Augusta WestJet Launches New Frequent Flier Program 787 Begins First Flight Tests outside of Washington United orders...
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WestJet has launched a new frequent flier program, called the Frequent Guest program. Now, the way that they are organizing this program is unique. It seems to be a program for the average flier, rather than the frequent flier. We recently bemoaned the fact that airlines have effectively devalued their miles by allowing people...
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We've decided to try a little experiment here at Flight Wisdom. We're going to record our news and service roundups that you can subscribe and listen to in your favorite podcast software. The new service, which we are calling the Flight Wisdom Briefing, will, if popular, come out at least once a week, if...
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This week in Routes...Southwest to start Philly-Boston, United adds service in 13 markets, and more.
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This week's latest in route developments.
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Image via Wikipedia Welcome to another additional of roundup. Today we have some continuing news and route developments. Remember, for more details/information, a link appears to a press release or other story inside each notice. This week, AirTran announced increases to its winter Florida schedule. Daily flights will be added to both Orlando and...
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We enjoyed Dave Carroll’s unique approach to speaking out against customer service. Apparently we were not alone in this. It seems a lot of people did. It struck a chord with Westjet, the Canadian discount airline, which invited Dave not only to jam with them, but to fly with them next time. While we...
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For the first time in the United States, an airport is being built for commercial service completely without government funding. This new airport will be in Branson, Missouri, which receives 8.4 million visitors a year for its shows and conventions. The nearest airport is over an hour away in Springfield, and lacks low-fare service,...
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For years, Southwest Airlines has been known for going outside the box. They flew to secondary airports, provided service where other carriers could not sustain a turboprop with sheer volume, and did not work with other carriers. Southwest has made moves away from that over the last few years. They moved into places like...
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Obese people have the right to two airline seats for the price of one on flights within Canada…because they are “functionally disabled.” The decision, made by the Canadian Transportation Agency, was appealed by the major Canadian carriers, who lost their final appeal last week. The question is what the definition of functionally disabled means....
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We thought we’d clear our backlog of interesting news out before the weekend. Enjoy! JetBlue set a world performance record with one of its Embraer 190s as the regional jet was returned to JetBlue’s home base at JFK from its time as Sarah Palin‘s plane during the campaign. The plane flew nonstop without passengers...
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Air Canada has announced it will roll back some previously imposed fees. It is nice for an airline actually repeal something it claimed to impose due to high fuel costs. Air Canada announced last week it would stop charging the $25 second bag fee it established in May. It also announced fuel surcharges would...
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We’ve been very behind lately. We keep saying we’ll catch up, but life happens. We are committed to providing the best in airline news and commentary we possibly can, but we do have day jobs, of course. Delta received preliminary approval to fly from New York’s JFK Airport to Bogota, Columbia. Spirit Airlines announced...
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Airlines have been making many changes in management of late. It inspired us to do a little review of what airline management has been saying, as well as some new initiatives. Westjet Westjet CEO Sean Durfy thinks the Canadian discounter could control as much as half of the domestic Canadian market by 2013. The...
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Amadeus has signed an international rail distribution agreement with Wandrian, a global rail specialist, to distribute rail content to travel agents outside Europe who want to book rail globally. Through the web-based Amadeus RailAgent, travel agents outside Europe will have online connectivity and tools enabling them to book global rail passes and point-to-point tickets...
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There’s a lot to catch up on… Qantas is expanding its flight schedule to the United States, effective March 2008, bringing total flights to 46 flights per week. The increased schedule includes daily service between Los Angeles and Brisbane effective March 27th; Increasing to 17 weekly flights between Los Angeles and Sydney, effective March...
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Jetblue is adding Saturday service from Boston to Aruba to complement its JFK service effective June 30th. It will also add service from Boston to San Diego once daily effective June 28th. Connections will be available to its partner, Cape Air. Southwest Airlines will be adding one additional daily nonstop flight between Albuquerque and...
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Aero-News Network reports that the first 737NG with in-seat video was recently delivered to Jet Airways, an Indian carrier. The latest 737-800 offers a Panasonic in-seat video system as an option, as standard outlets(not power ports) throughout the cabin. Boeing refers to it as the most technologically advanced single-aisle jet family on the market...
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Westjet, the second largest airline in Canada, is holding talks to join the Oneworld Alliance. The Oneworld Alliance consists of American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Qantas, Lan, Finnair and Iberian. Aer Lingus is scheduled to leave the alliance later this season, but new members, Malev Hungarian Airlines, Royal Jordanian, and Japan Airlines will...
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