Notable Airline, Hotel and Travel Industry News: August 21, 2012

  • American Airlines has some pretty darn good first class fares out there today. In looking at flights from Los Angeles, nonstops to Miami are available for $388 one-way, Chicago $420 and Boston $454. Hat tip: Airfarewatchdog.
  • United Airlines expanded the recent Southwest fare increase of $10 roundtrip to include domestic flights longer than 500 miles. No word as of this posting as to whether other airlines have matched.
  • More airlines are moving to Las Vegas McCarran Airport’s swanky new Terminal 3. This week, United and Hawaiian move only their check-in facilities to the terminal. They will still use gates out of Concourse D and passengers will have to take an underground tram to reach them.
  • JetBlue was fined $90,000 for failing to notify passengers sitting on a plane at the gate at JFK they could get off if so desired. Apparently a part of the tarmac delay rule, if a flight is 30 minutes or more past its scheduled departure time and further delays are expected, passengers must be advised they have the option to leave the aircraft. And this type of announcement must be made every 30 minutes.
  • We have another candidate for “air traveling idiot of the week.” This one comes to us from Air Canada where an intoxicated business class passenger had to be restrained with wire straps and duct tape after grabbing a bottle of alcohol and becoming abusive. See… it’s not just those pesky coach people behind the curtain.
  • United sent out an email today offering 40% off MileagePlus purchased miles. You have to buy at least 15,000 miles to qualify and it lasts through tomorrow. The email didn’t exactly makes it sound like it’s targeted, and many bloggers have already posted links. Check your email!
  • A new report questions the value of the $6.5 billion the U.S. spent on aviation security in 2011. It highlights, “… while the US security system relies on a layered security strategy, more layers are not necessarily better than fewer.”
  • In related U.S. airport security news and completely NSFW, check out this YouTube spoof of the TSA. It gave me a chuckle. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.