Airlines (General)

Category Archives for Airlines (General).

Air Traffic Controller Responds to Airliner Engine Explosion With ‘Lovely’

A Thomas Cook Airbus A330 departing yesterday from Manchester Airport in the UK experienced what most are calling a right engine compressor stall on takeoff thrust. A popular plane-spotter captured it on video, and it’s certainly worth a watch – not only for the “lovely” comment by an air traffic controller (I’ll put it in…

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Notable Airline News: June 24, 2013

Here are a few news items from the airline industry that caught my attention today: Delta Air Lines and Virgin Atlantic received clearance for their joint venture from EU and U.S. regulators, bringing with it reciprocal frequent flier benefits for SkyMiles and Flying Club members. Starting on July 3, members of both programs will have…

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Eau de Airline: Turkish Airlines Launches ‘TK 1933’ Fragrance

I missed this when it was announced late last month (hat tip to @airlinetrends for tweeting it earlier this week), but Turkish Airlines now has its very own scent. According to their press release: (On May 30), Turkish Airlines introduced the fragrance “TK 1933†that will be yet another tool used to take the airline’s…

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United Airlines Adds Spend Requirement for Elite Status Beginning in 2014

Hot off the Flyertalk and Milepoint boards is the announcement that beginning next year, United will follow Delta’s lead by adding an annual spend requirement for elite qualification. Here is UA Insider’s post from this morning: Today we’re announcing some upcoming changes to our Premier qualification requirements for 2014. We’ve posted complete details and a…

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Amenity Kit Review: SATA Internacional Plus Class (Premium Economy)

SATA Internacional is an airline operating out of the Azores, and originated from the acquisition of Oceanair by its subsidiary, SATA Air Açores, in 1994. It’s one that I knew little about until a generous reader who does a bit of marketing work for them reached out and offered up their Plus class amenity kit,…

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A Father’s Day Tribute to My Dad, Aviation Style

If you recall from my Mother’s Day post, I have a wonderful Mom who snuck through a side door of United’s headquarters in the 1980s to buy me something unique for my birthday from their logo shop. My Dad is equally fantastic and did everything he could to encourage and foster my passion for airlines,…

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World’s Best Airline Meals and My Top 5 Picks

You don’t hear as many jokes these days about airplane food as you did years ago when airlines served a hot meal – to all passengers – on just about every flight lasting more than 1.5 hours. But airline food remains a popular topic and I’ve been assigned the task to come up with a…

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The Evolution of Airline Logos and Branding

Here’s an interesting look at the evolution of various airline logos, some going as far back nearly 90 years. My favorites are Air France (1970-2004), American Airlines (1960-2013), Monarch (2002-2009), Qantas (1984-2007), Swissair (1981-2002), and the Saul Bass United Airlines design (1974-1993). Which are your favorites? Thanks to @AirlineSector for tweeting this out yesterday, as…

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Is It Really That Hard to Redeem Frequent Flier Miles?

A couple of articles caught my attention this week about the difficulty some travelers have redeeming frequent flier miles. The first is from the Daily Mail, and setting my opinion of the publication itself aside, I read through the article. About 1,000 British fliers were surveyed and asked about their participation in an airline’s frequent…

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List and Description of All United Airlines Fare Classes

One of the most popular posts here on Frequently Flying is my Airfare Pricing Buckets & Airline Fare Basis Codes Revealed! entry from a couple of years ago. It’s still very much valid in decoding domestic United Airlines fare basis codes, as revenue management post-merger with Continental kept the same logic. What has changed –…

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