Several articles caught my eye yesterday and this morning, so here’s a news roundup of the top stories hitting the blogosphere: No, Pan Am definitely isn’t returning to the skies as an airline, but ABC Television has ordered a pilot episode for a new show that will follow the fictional lives of flight attendants during…
Looking out the window through the eyes of a first time flyer
I’ve mentioned several times already how much I like to gaze out the windows when I fly. The views can be spectacular and there is always something new or different to look at no matter how much you fly. One reporter recently flew on a domestic flight within Vietnam and captured the experience of a…
Vintage Airline Seat Map: Continental Airlines Airbus A300
Given my frequency of flights on Continental Airlines lately, I thought it appropriate to feature another aircraft from the airline for this installment of Vintage Airline Seat Maps. This is the Airbus A300 (or A300B2 if you want the nitty gritty). Configured for two classes of service, they were reallocated from Eastern Airlines over to…
Virgin Blue showcases new uniforms, business class offering and lounges
Today, Virgin Blue revealed the new in-flight staff uniforms designed by the Australian Project Runway winner Juli Grbac, as well as provided additional information about expanding their fleet to offer business class. Trying to lure some of the higher-yield corporate traffic away from Qantas, Virgin Blue’s CEO John Borghetti said, “With our competitive pricing strategy,…
A few words on Continental Airlines vs. United Airlines domestically
Now that I have several Continental Airlines flights in both first class & coach under my belt, I’ve developed a list of service-related items I’d like to see in the combined carrier. These are in no particular order and are only comparing Continental and United Airlines on domestic flights. Boarding Process: United. Continental’s procedure offers…
Downtown Chicago & Detroit from 37,000 feet… plus Cleveland
I was off on yet another mileage run yesterday and snapped the following pictures from 37,000 feet of Chicago and Detroit. Given my displeasure of being “trapped” in a window seat on longer flights in coach, I had reserved the exit row aisle on this Continental Airlines flight. It was lightly booked, though, and I…
United Airlines Honolulu call center: Excellent service, horrible climate?
Those of us frequent flyers on United Airlines with Premier Executive status or above usually get a domestic call center when phoning reservations. United’s three centers on U.S. soil are in Dearborn, MI, Chicago, IL, and Honolulu, HI, and I can almost tell immediately when I get a Honolulu agent. They answer the phone with…
United Airlines announces Economy Plus will live on & Virgin America enters the Chicago market
A mere hours after I posted my noteworthy news items for the week yesterday, two more even bigger announcements came down. First, and absolutely most exciting for United flyers is the welcome news that Economy Plus will be a part of the NEW United Airlines. Many loyalists have been waiting for this decision, and had…
Noteworthy items from the airline & travel industry this week
Here’s a summary of some hot news items from this week covering airlines, airfares, airplanes and hotels. Delta Air Lines: Delta announced that retroactive to January 1, 2011, there is no longer an expiration policy to frequent flyer miles earned in the SkyMiles program. This makes Delta the first major carrier to offer such an…
United Airlines discovers missed maintenance deadline for Boeing 757 fleet
United Airlines discovered they missed a deadline to complete a required maintenance directive on their fleet of 96 Boeing 757-200 aircraft yesterday, causing some cancellations and significant delays. It is being reported that between 7 and 17 flights were cancelled yesterday, and delays could trickle through into today. The Federal Airworthiness Directive in question was…