That's right lady, go ahead and type in our checked baggage fees and holiday surcharges; we now know to avoid your airline in future travels. You see, three airlines have become the grinches of the holiday travel season. Not only are they throwing down the baggage fees, but they're already upping recently-announced peak travel surcharges, some of which continue through to 2010.

The offending airlines are: United, Delta and US Airways. Might as well just throw all your spare change and travel coffee money at them now, with all the little additional nicks they're taking at your wallet... ]]> JetSetCD 2009-11-23T13:59:00-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/11/23/04918/206

British Airways CEO Willie Walsh is going around telling people (like Financial Times journalists) that he thinks a merger with Aussie airline Qantas could still happen. They talked about it last year but dismissed it as a bad idea, but now British Airways is considering nicer ways to ask.

Basically, Qantas is a successful airline on its own, even though their old CEO thought merging a good idea. So British Airways is now saying they could merge in the same way as they did with Spanish airline Iberia, which would still give Qantas a fair bit of autonomy.]]> amandak 2009-11-23T10:39:33-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/11/23/8398/5162

Remember when some pilots were recently screwing around on their laptops instead of paying attention to the whole flying-the-plane thing? It would have been nice to hear portions of their conversations in the cockpit—just to see what was actually going on. Well a new bill might allow airlines to listen to portions of cockpit communications.

The current union contracts kind of prohibit eavesdropping on what the pilots are chatting about while they are doing their job. However, this new bill would allow the airlines to use recorded data to discipline or fire pilots if they weren’t doing what they were supposed to be doing. As it stands now, the recordings only become available if there’s an accident or other serious situation, but if the bill goes anywhere, listening in to evaluate pilot performance could become law. ]]> kjb 2009-11-23T09:24:32-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/11/23/81518/224

Just the other day we were talking about Air Canada and complaining about their decision to start charging for better seats in coach, but today we have a little bit of better news. We knew the airline was working behind the scenes to equip some of their planes with in-flight WiFi, and the first stage of the installation has been completed.

In time for the holiday season, the airline is testing out the wireless Internet magic over a ten week period—just to see how things go at first. They’re the first Canadian airline to provide the service, and passengers will be busy surfing on routes from Montreal and Toronto to Los Angeles. Gogo will be providing the service, but at first, the wireless will only be available when the planes are actually flying over the United States. ]]> kjb 2009-11-23T09:04:32-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/11/19/131734/64

Seat-back ads have finally arrived in the US, with low cost carrier AirTran being the first to embrace what is already beloved onboard European LCCs like Ryanair and EasyJet.

Soon, passengers on all AirTran flights will be confronted for the entire trip by a 2.5" by 9" poster, sitting a few feet from their eyes, trying to worm its way into their eyeballs. It will be present on all 138 jets, and the first advertiser is an odd one: Mother Nature Network, a "one-stop resource and an everyman's eco-guide" for environmental news, travel, lifestyle, etc. MNN will use the ads to publicize a 7-night cruise giveaway as well—how eco-friendly of them. Hmm... ]]> Omri 2009-11-20T11:43:12-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/11/19/225232/40

It’s pretty clear that engineers and executives at Boeing only want one thing for Christmas, and that’s for the 787 to finally take flight for the first time. We’ve been going back and forth on when this thing will finally test things out, and once again, it seems like there just might be some good news.

The whole wing connecting to the body problem seems to have been resolved, and it sounds like no parts will fall off during a test flight, which is great news. Just to make sure, there will be all kinds of stress tests on the ground to ensure that these wings can withstand the pressures of flight, turbulence, and probably a lot worse. ]]> kjb 2009-11-20T09:20:03-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/11/20/8460/1617

Ever since AirTran and Virgin America rolled out their fleet-wide WiFi earlier this year, other domestic legacy carriers have stepped up their game and mostly stayed on track for connectivity. A great example is American Airlines, who reached the milestone of having 100 planes connected in August, with a goal of 150 by the year's end.

With over 100 WiFi-hot American birdies up in the sky, your chances of flying on one are better than ever. And just in case you get lucky and score a plane connected with Gogo, American wants to make sure you're ready with your laptop by letting you check in advance to see if you'll have the internet on your flight. Via a new widget, passengers may enter their flight number or departure airport and see, up to 24 hours before the flight, if their plane will be WiFi-equipped. You can even share the widget by embedding it your blog, adding it your iGoogle, and taking advantage of other options. ]]> JetSetCD 2009-11-20T09:04:40-05:00 Search Jaunted string http://www.jaunted.com/search/