Flight Wisdom

Time to catch up with what Delta has been up to since we slowed our weekly roundups.

Delta is adding a fifth daily flight between Atlanta and San Juan from November 22
Starting December 20th, Delta will add additional nonstop service from Atlanta to the Caribbean. A second daily flight to Aruba, a second Saturday flight to [...]

Delta is teaming up with Air Cell, one of the companies working to put Internet back on planes post Boeing Connexxion.
The system, Gogo™, will enable Delta customers traveling with Wi-Fi enabled devices, such as laptops, smartphones and PDAs, to access the Internet, corporate VPNs, corporate and personal e-mail accounts, as well as SMS texting and [...]

Delta Airlines today increased the fee to check a second piece of luggage from $25 to $50. These changes apply to all tickets booked on or after July 31st for travel on or after August 5th.
Delta currently does not charge for the first bag, but let’s see how quickly those carriers who do match this [...]

The New York Post reports that a Manhattan lawyer is suing Delta Air Lines for one million dollars. He claims that their “absolute incompetence” ruined his elderly mother’s eightieth birthday celebration.
Richard Roth says that he’d arranged for his entire family, including several cousins, to meet in Argentina. Roth started planning the trip in September of [...]

Delta and Northwest have put up a website, announced a merger, , and are scheduled to webcast their official press conference on Tuesday morning. Such a move can trigger a wave of additional consolidation within the industry, as airlines line up to compete with a new mega-carrier.
The consolidation of services, like with USAirways, once the [...]

Airline passengers think that their ticket gives them the right to have themselves and their luggage transported to their destination. They are wrong on both counts. Most recently, the legacy carriers have now imposed a twenty-five dollar charge for the checking of a second bag.
Chris Elliott, in his blog, commented that United’s chief revenue officer [...]

Virgin Atlantic became the first airline to fly a plane on biofuel, as it partnered with GE, Boeing, and Imperium Renewables. If babassu and coconut oil is cheaper and more environmentally friendly than jet fuel, then we’re all for it.
Alitalia will launch nonstop Rome-Los Angeles service on June 1st. The service, the only nonstop between [...]

An anonymous source at Delta has reported that the rumored Delta-Northwest merger will be announced next week. The merger will use the Delta name, and retain the Delta headquarters in Atlanta, as well as the Delta CEO.
The consolidation, long rumored in the news, would unify the two carriers. The previous industry merger unified US Airways [...]

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 Jones [...]

We’d like to remind our readers that the links embedded in each article go to a press release or news article with more details than our news briefs. Each week we scour the press releases and such for these articles.

Regional airline SkyWest has sued Delta Air Lines over the airline’s withholding of $25 million [...]

US Airways will be adding service to three Gulf Coast cities from its Charlotte hub. Service will begin April 6th to Ft. Walton Beach, FL and Panama City. Service to Gulfport/Biloxi, MS will begin May 6th. Service will be operated by subsidiary PSA Airlines using 5-seat CRJ-200s.
Horizon Air will begin Santa [...]

BMI will start London Heathrow to Tel Aviv service on March 13th. The route will be operated by an Airbus 320 with 20 seats in business and 108 in economy. Connections will be available from Dublin, Belfast, Durham Tees Valley, Leeds Bradford, Manchester, and Scotland.
VRG began daily operations from Sao Paulo to Mexico City on [...]

Horizon Air announced new nonstop service from Los Angeles to Loreto, Mexico. The flights will be operated by a CRJ-700 and begin January 19th. The flights will supplement Alaska’s existing service on the route.
United Airlines inaugurated Los Angeles-Frankfurt on Saturday.
American Airlines had a lot of new routes beginning this week

Miami to:

Barranquilla, Colombia
Phoenix
Savannah
Sarasota/Bradenton

Ft. Lauderdale to:

Santo Domingo
San [...]

Overbooking is annoying. With the exception of Jetblue, which does not, airlines typically overbook by 33%. Find another industry where, with the approval of the government, a company is allowed to knowingly sell more of a product than they know they have. What reaction would this have if it were done at the theater, for [...]

Things have been incredibly busy here at ‘Blog Central’. Fortunately, the holiday season is upon us, hopefully bringing lots of time for us to catch up on all the airline news thats fit to blog. So here we are in no particular order(although newest ones will be first).

Jetblue is reminding people of its 144 [...]

Jetblue announced nonstop service between Orlando and Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. Service will be daily beginning March 6th. Service will be operated by Jetblue’s E190 aircraft.
Delta will offer Saturday seasonal service beginning February 16th from Aspen/Snowmass, Colorado to Atlanta. Delta partner Skywest will operate the flights using CRJ700 regional jets. Seems a bit [...]

Air Canada will be offering nonstop service from Ottawa to Frankfurt beginning June 1st as well as nonstop service from Toronto-Dusseldorf six times weekly beginning May 1st…and a second daily nonstop from Calgary-Frankfurt on April 14th.
American Eagle began nonstop service today from Flint’s Bishop International Airport and New York’s LaGuardia Airport. Service will be six [...]

Lots to cover…never enough time…

United Airlines announced new service from Los Angeles to Des Moines, IA and Austin, TX effective February 13th, and will be operated by Skywest’s CRJ-700 regional jets with 6 first class and 60 economy seats, including Economy Plus.
Beginning on March 3rd, Delta will be offering flights from Lawton/Ft. Sill, Oklaholma to [...]

Midwest Airlines has added the option to purchase a customized Travel Guard single-trip travel insurance policy specifically for Midwest customers during the ticket purchase process on the Midwest Airlines website and through their other distribution means. We love trip insurance….it protects you from the horror stories we often collect about horrible situations that have happened [...]

We’ve been a bit occupied of lot, and have a lot to catch up on. Rest assured, that while this is not our primary responsibility(we have jobs), we hope to be back on top of things soon, bringing the best in air travel developments in a timely fashion.

Hagerstown Airport, 80 miles northwest of downtown Washington [...]

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 airline currently [...]

One can be shocked by the repeated stories of woe and disaster…here are some that are not to be believed. Airline complaints in the United States overall are up this year, increasing 47.2% in the first six months of 2007, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. In order…the top five complained about U.S. airlines [...]

Airtran has signed a new three year contract with Coca-Cola. Onboard, you can get Coca-Cola Classic®, Diet Coke®, Sprite®, Sprite Zero(TM), Coca-Cola Zero(TM), Minute Maid® Lemonade, Dasani® Water, Cherry Coke(TM), Cherry Coke Zero(TM) and three types of Minute Maid® juices. Poor Pepsi. Has anyone signed with them lately?
Air France-KLM announced last week they would reduce [...]

The FAA has ordered the inspection of all wing slats on newer Boeing 737s based on findings about a fire that destroyed a China Airlines plane in Japan last week. Investigators have discovered that a bolt from a right wing slat had pierced the fuel tank. Thus, within 24 days, all US planes must have [...]

Delta has officially announced their nonstop flight from Salt Lake City to Paris beginning June 2nd, 2008, with a Boeing 767-300ER. The flights will be operated in cooperation with Air France, and will offer over 200 destinations on either side beyond the flight’s endpoints on both carriers. The new route is also expected to offer [...]