The U.S. State Department had previously issued a travel alert advising citizens to avoid non-essential travel to Japan through at least April 1, 2011 due to the earthquake. That advisory has been lifted, but all airlines have some type of travel waiver in place to enable rebooking or cancelling current trips to Japan for a…
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Compensation for service failures at the new United Airlines
When things go wrong onboard United Airlines, the pursers are armed with handy “Please accept our apology†cards, previously known as Skykits. They allow you to log onto United’s website, punch in the nature of the problem along with the unique serial number from the card, and you are presented with a few options to…
Amenity Kit Review: Continental Airlines BusinessFirst (2011 version)
I’ve selected the current international BusinessFirst kit from Continental Airlines for this edition of Amenity Kit Reviews. For a better description of each category, and the 7-point scale for scoring, please review my introductory post here. Bag/Container: The patterned gray, rectangular nylon/canvas zipper bag is branded with a navy blue BusinessFirst tag sewn into the…
Major earthquake strikes Japan & related impact to airline flight operations
Terrible news this morning, as I’ve just finished reading about the horrendous magnitude 8.9 earthquake in Japan, the corresponding tsunami & enormous loss of life. My sincerest thoughts are for the region and everyone impacted today. The vast majority of flights (if not all) headed to Narita Airport outside Tokyo were diverted to other airports…
Vintage Airline Seat Map: Eastern Airlines DC-10-30
I’ve selected an Eastern Airlines DC-10 for this installment of Vintage Airline Seat Maps. The series 30 model was a longer range version of the then popular Douglas Aircraft Company tri-jet. Instantly distinguished from the dash-10 series by the additional center main twin-wheel landing gear, Eastern initially operated this airplane on the Miami to London…
Review of Room 77: a new hotel search engine featuring floor plans & room views
A new and ingenious hotel search engine has entered the market of travel websites. Named Room 77, it allows you to search for a specific hotel, enter your room type preferences including bed type, floor level & distance from the elevator, and then displays a list of top-matching rooms at that hotel, as well as…
Continental and United Airlines mileage transfers plus elite status match & consolidation
While it has already been deeply covered by the other blogs, I would be negligent if I didn’t also mention the welcome news from yesterday. Effective immediately, you can now freely move miles between your Continental Airlines OnePass account and your United Airlines Mileage Plus account. In fact, you can move miles back and forth…
Halfway to United Airlines 1K status & revisiting the Systemwide Upgrade timeline
My latest trip pushed me over the halfway point to requalifying for 1K status for 2012, and I’m thinking now that I need to retract a statement I made back in November. United Airlines announced a variety of changes to the Mileage Plus program at that time, including the deposit schedule for systemwide upgrades (SWUs).…
Airline social media, lawsuits, leaky engines, top rankings & retiring birds
Here are a few more noteworthy news items from the airline industry in the past week: Airlines have wholly embraced Facebook and Twitter as important marketing and social media portals, and some are expanding it to include flight searches and bookings like Delta Air Lines has already done. Taking it a step further, though, is…
The United Airlines 1K Only website gets a major and long overdue overhaul
[Edited June 1, 2011] R.I.P. to the 1k-Only Website! It’s gone & was replaced simply with a link for the “1K Calling Guide.” For the myriad of United Airlines 100,000-mile flyers out there, let me save you some time and tell you I’m lying. For everyone else, a perk for being in the top mileage-based…