Flight Wisdom

Midwest Airlines…the Cookie, which successfully fended off a takeover bid last year, is racing to avoid bankruptcy in the high-cost fuel environment that has hurt so many carriers.
It will ground 12 of its 37 jets, retiring its MD-80 aircraft, which will produce a reduction in overall flights. They are asking frontline employees to take pay [...]

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 [...]

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 on [...]

Here we are, the last roundup of 2007…

Discounter Zoom Airlines will be operating new service from London Gatwick to both San Diego and Ft. Lauderdale. From next May, Ft. Lauderdale service will operate Thursdays and Sundays and will be the first scheduled service from Europe to Ft. Lauderdale in ten years. Service to San Diego [...]

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 [...]

The Labor Day weekend is upon us…our spin-off blog, The Infrequent Flier, has its travel tips for the holiday season. For us here at Flight Wisdom, we wish you happy travels.

Operators of some CRJ-100, 200, and 440 jets have until Friday to comply with new restrictions issued by the Canadian and US governments. Increasingly [...]

Midwest Airlines is adding a fifth roundtrip to service from Milwaukee to both Philadelphia and Omaha beginning October 1st. The new service will be offered on 50-seat CRJ-200 regional jets, featuring brown leather seats, chef-prepared buy-onboard Best Care Cuisine meals and baked-on-board chocolate chip cookies.
Continental Airlines has upgraded its website to allow passengers who 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 [...]

We’ve been away for a few days and there is a lot to catch up on…

Northwest has announced its new regional subsidiary, Compass Airlines, will launch its new Embraer 175 regional jets this coming Tuesday with a flight from Minneapolis to Omaha. Compass, which was created uses the assets of Independence Air, which Northwest [...]

Northwest CEO Doug Steenland continues to apologize for Northwest’s flight cancellation. Northwest continues to blame the problem on pilots, however, instead of blaming their own practices. Northwest Airlines and the Airline Pilots Association confirmed an agreement on contract issues and work rules to help improve the problem, the agreement implements contractual changes on work [...]

On the lighter side of travel…teacher Dave Barclay flew from Toronto, Canada to Cardiff, in Wales to attend a wedding, only to discover that the wedding was scheduled for next July. Barclay, who spent $1015 on his flight, commented that on the bright side, his error has assured him a mention in the speech next [...]

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 30th; increasing [...]

A man desperate to keep his girlfriend from boarding a flight from Ft. Myers to New York called in a bomb threat for her airplane Wednesday afternoon. Christian G. Mejia, age 23, was arrested after he dropped off his girlfriend and her travelling companion to an airport and drove to a pay phone and called [...]

Virgin America has been approved to launch service. Now that the company has been formally approved, the next step will be to seek a waiver to start selling tickets. The company is planning a mid-summer launch. Virgin America’s first flights will be between its home base of San Francisco (SFO) to New York (JFK). The [...]

Airtran will be the first to serve Cherry Coke and Cherry Coke Zero onboard all flights effective this month. We just love the fact that it is big news which soft drinks an airline has…probably bigger for the airlines that don’t give you any.
United raised fares on popular business routes by up to $50 each [...]

Spirit Airlines today announced nonstop service to San Pedro Sula, Honduras from its Ft. Lauderdale hub. Service will be offered three times a week from July 20th through November 15, when it will become daily.
Southwest announced four daily nonstop flights in six cities. Beginning August 26th, one new daily nonstop from Manchester to Phoenix and [...]

Ff you are a reader and want us to feature one of your stories, we are eager to. Here’s our rundown and synopsis of some of the recent ones we gleaned from other blogs…most from the Consumerist.

Virgin Atlantic charged one passenger $110 for a seat upgrade, and gave the same seat to another passenger for [...]

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 Dallas as [...]

United will add a $10 surcharge for all passengers out of LAX to offset a $10 million rent increase imposed by the Los Angeles World Airports effective immediately. United is one of several airlines suing LAWA, which runs LAX, over the increase and has decided to encourage public outrage by making the passenger pay the [...]

Midwest Airlines continued its rollout of 50-seater regional jets operated by Skywest Airlines as Midwest Connect with the inauguration of service onboard these jets from Milwaukee to Columbus, OH and on select flights between Milwaukee and Minneapolis/St. Paul and Philadelphia.
Midwest’s new route between Kansas City and Seattle/Tacoma launched today. The flights operate as Midwest Signature [...]

TAM will start operating service from Sao Paulo to Cordoba, Argentina effective March 29th.
Midwest Airlines will launch service from Milwaukee to Raleigh/Durham beginning June 1st. Also on that day, it will upgrade Milwaukee to BWI from 32 to 50 seat regional jets, and from Milwaukee to Des Moines…all service will now be on 32-seat regional [...]

American Eagle launched once-daily roundtrip service from Miami to Cozumel, Mexico yesterday using an ATR72 turboprop.
Frontier Airlines launched nonstop service today to Cabo San Lucas from Sacramento(three flights per week) and San Jose(four flights per week) using A319 aircraft.
Frontier also launched its new nonstop service from Denver to Hartford last night. It marks Frontier’s return [...]

Jetblue announced service from Boston to Charlotte and Washington-Dulles to Orlando beginning May 1st. The Boston flight will be once daily, the Dulles flight twice daily. It will also add once additional flight from Long Beach to Las Vegas, JFK to Portland ME, JFK to Charlotte, and JFK to Raleigh-Durham.
Jetblue also announced increases in international [...]

Airtran announced plans to begin service from Portland International Jetport from Baltimore-Washington International and Orlando International Airports in June. The service will begin June 7th with three daily roundtrips to BWI, followed on the ninth by a daily flight to Orlando. While the service is noted as seasonal, there is no note as to when [...]

Beginning May 1st, Midwest will launch new service from Kansas City to Columbus. In addition, Midwest Connect flights out of Milwaukee to Flint, Dayton, Duluth, Louisville, and Pittsburgh will be upgraded to larger aircraft. This will eliminate 19-seater turboprops from these routes. All routes will be operated by Midwest Connect with either 32-seater Fairchild 328 [...]