Flight Wisdom

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 starting May 8th, [...]

We were intrigued when Southwest announced it will be testing inflight internet access hopefully this summer on four aircraft. The service, in partnership with Row 44 will give its passengers full access to Internet including e-mail, music, shopping, and work through a virtual private network(VPN).
But why is Southwest doing this? Their press release on the [...]

The last time we spoke of Southwest, they were changing their open seating policy. Pre-boarding for families now comes after the A group, passengers are numbered within their letter class in order of check-in. Families were upset. Suddenly, they were told they were not as important anymore.
But…now they’ve made another bunch of rapid changes. They’ve [...]

Southwest…the Love Airline…based at Dallas’s Love Field…with the symbol LUV…An airline that once dressed flight attendants in hot pants and declared Racquel Welsh its ideal employee type has hit middle age.
“That’s the day that the airline built on buxom tops, lanky legs, hot pants and go-go boots told a 23-year-old college student that she was [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Today in the Sky reports that, unannounced, Delta raised fees on August 1st. Same-day confirmed standby has doubled to $50, the direct booking fee has doubled to $20, their $50 change fee is now a $75 change fee. $75 is now also the charge for redepositing unused frequent-flier miles and for booking frequent flier tickets [...]

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 [...]

Qatar Airways touched down at Washington-Dulles Airport last night in its maiden flight on the route from Doha. The Airbus 340 was greeted by a water salute.
Horizon Air has slashed fares from Idaho Falls to Seattle and Portland. Fares on the routes that were $183-$364 are now $139-$189 each way. All flights to the city [...]

We’ve been away for a few days and there is a lot more than Virgin America that has gone on…Let’s catch up…

Continental Airlines has announced it will begin nonstop service from Newark to Mont-Tremblant, Quebec. The carrier will operate one daily round-trip flight, except between Jan. 8 and Feb. 13, when it not fly [...]

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 [...]

Aeromexico today began offering flights from Austin, Texas to Mexico City daily, increasing from four times weekly. Service will now be operated by an Embraer 145 regional jet.
L’Avion, the all business French airline, will be offering a second flight from Newark to Paris Orly using a 757-200 with 90 seats starting for the winter season.
American [...]

Brandweek reports that Jetblue will unveil onboard Internet access sometime this year, delivered by LiveTV, which is a Jetblue subsidiary company that not only provides IFE to it, but to other airlines. Cell phone calls will be blocked…due to overwhelming customer opposition to the ability…but text messaging is an acceptable alternative in the air for [...]

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 [...]

Air Canada will introduce daily nonstop service from Vancouver to Yellowknife with seasonal service from December 1st through April with a 50-seat CRJ. Flights are timed to connect with service to Tokyo, Osaka, and points within British Columbia.
Airtran launched service today from Portland, Maine to BWI. The first flight from BWI brought a delegation of [...]

Southwest, which has long been a holdout on working with global distribution systems(GDS), and only maintained the most limited participation in them…today announced a 10-year content distribution agreement with Galileo.
Kevin Krone, Southwest’s VP of Sales, Marketing, and Distribution, commented that the GDS environment has evolved to the point where it has become cost effective for [...]

Southwest has announced its schedule for the return of service at San Francisco International Airport. It will begin service August 26th, with 18 nonstop daily departures. Service will begin with three daily flights to Chicago Midway, eight to San Diego, and seven to Las Vegas. Through these flights, it will offer connecting or direct service [...]

American Airlines is insisting it needs gynecological records, as well as psychological records of the daughter a woman killed on American Airlines 587, which crashed on November 12, 2001 in Queens. A hearing has been scheduled for tomorrow. Only six passenger cases from the crash are left unsettled and there seems to be no reason [...]

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 [...]

Continental Airlines announced Friday it now has interline eticketing capabilties with all Alliance partners now that it has implemented them with Air Europa. All codeshare, Skyteam, planned Skyteam associates, and frequent flyer partners are now complete. They expect to eliminate issuing and accepting paper tickets by the end of the year, in accordance with IATA’s [...]

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 [...]

ATA announced last week that it would acquire World Air Holdings, which owns charter carriers World Airways and North American Airlines. North American, based at JFK, offers some regularly scheduled service. World Air Holdings did not acquire North American that long ago itself. The airlines would be operated as three separate airlines under one corporate [...]