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Tags: Airplane News / Boeing / Airline News / Air Force One / 747-8 / → All Tags
Boeing Has More Than Just The 787 In Its Garage
There’s been a rash of news about the new Boeing 787, but unfortunately it’s usually bad news about delays, issues, and other minor disasters that have prevented the plane from taking flight. However, the engineers and assembly line workers at Boeing do have something to smile about this holiday season. Their newest version of the jumbo jet has rolled out of the garage, and the 747-8 is the biggest airplane that they have ever built.
It kind of looks like any other 747 flying around the globe, but Boeing wants everyone to know that it’s not. Most of the plane is made up of new materials, and it has a totally new design for its wings. It even stole the 787’s more fuel efficient engines and took some of its ideas for fancy electronics inside the cockpit. The airplane builder is hoping to set this new bird up to compete with the Airbus A380, which can hold over 550 passengers. The new 747 is certainly smaller than the competition, but it still will be able to hold 467 passengers and Boeing claims its more fuel efficient on a per passenger basis. Being a little greener is always a good selling point.
Tags: Airline Fees / Airline News / US Airways / Delta / United / Holiday Travel / → All Tags
Three Airlines Become True Grinches By Raising Holiday Surcharges
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...
Tags: Qantas / British Airways / Airline Mergers / Airline News / Airlines / → All Tags
British Airways Considering Getting In Bed With Qantas
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.
Tags: Airline News / Airlines / Travel News / Pilots / → All Tags
Could Cockpit Conversations Soon Be Available For Review?
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.
Tags: In-flight WiFi / Gogo / WiFi / Air Canada / Airline News / Canada Travel / → All Tags
Air Canada Introduces In-Flight WiFi Just In Time For Christmas
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.
Tags: Travel Advertising / Airlines / Airline News / AirTran / LCCs / Travel Ads / → All Tags
AirTran Brings Insanely Obnoxious Seat-Back Advertising To The US
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...
Tags: Boeing 787 Dreamliner / 787 / Boeing / Airline News / Airplane News / → All Tags
We May Just See The '7-Late-7' Fly For Christmas
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.
Tags: In-Flight WiFi / American Airlines / WiFi / Technology / Airline News / Airlines / → All Tags
Want To Know If Your American Airlines Flight Has WiFi? There's A Widget For That
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.
Tags: Reality TV Shows / Virgin America / Airline News / Television Travel / Flight Attendants / Fly Girls / → All Tags
A First Look At 'Fly Girls,' Bringing Juicy Flight Attendant Drama To The CW
Let the buzz begin over the newest reality show-drama to hit the boob tube: "Fly Girls," a "docu-series" that will follow the day-to-night, sky-to-ground lives of five flight attendants for Virgin America. The teaser commercial just leaked last night on YouTube (we've posted it above), and already we're salivating for the start.
Now we know that Virgin America is bringing the sexy back to air travel, but this is the stuff of pure vice. For those of you familiar with the MTV shows "The Hills" and "The City," "Fly Girls" might feel familiar since the show is from the same executive producer, and we can already see the similarities through this brief spot alone. Still, it won't be all clubbin' and kissin' for the girls, as the CW is saying that the show is to be a "360-degree look at the charismatic jet-setting flight attendants on America’s hippest new airline." Does this mean we'll get to watch them explaining to cranky passengers how to connect to the in-flight WiFi?
The goodies on the show, after the jump.
Tags: Turf Wars / Japan Airlines / Delta / American Airlines / Airlines / Airline News / Airline Alliances / → All Tags
Delta Offers JAL a $1 Billion Bribe to Unfriend American Airlines
We promised you last week that the playground hair pulling fight between Japan Airlines, American Airlines, Virgin Atlantic, and Delta—where JAL may or may not decide to dump American Airlines/oneworld in favor of Delta/SkyTeam—was going to get more interesting. That's exactly what happened this morning, when Delta decided to put an eye-popping $1 billion on the table to entice Delta into switching.
Yowsers! Let's look at what went down...
Tags: Airline Fees / Airline News / Airlines / Holiday Travel / Delta / American Airlines / US Airways / United / → All Tags
Random Airline Fees Continue Into 2010, Including Super Bowl Travel
Remember all those airline fees that were pouring in a few months ago related to this season’s holiday travel? Well the airlines must have really enjoyed what they were seeing, as they are now looking to tack in some additional charges for days well into 2010. Delta, United, and American Airlines are busy adding these presents to our tickets anytime they think travel will be busier than usual.
The website BestFares.com is reporting that Delta and United have added surcharges to as many as 40 days between now and next May. The fees can be as much as $30 each way depending on distance, time, and other factors that appeal to the airlines. Our favorite airline fee has to be the $50 one-way charge that has now been added to some flights on February 8. In case you don’t have the NFL calendar kicking around, that’s the day after the Super Bowl. Not like we could afford tickets anyway, but we can still be angry about it.
Tags: Flight Delays / Airline News / FAA / → All Tags
FAA Glitch Delays Flights Across USA This Morning
Flying this morning? If you're reading this from a US airport, then you may have already noticed some flights showing up red with delays on the departure screens. The reason is an "FAA glitch" where their computer systems are having issues with processing flight plans, causing the FAA to process flight plans manually and significantly slowing down the system, since we rely on computer so much for this sort of high-volume, fast-paced work.
Although the back-up during the outage is being quickly dealt with and air traffic control is not affected, delays to departing flights are to be expected throughout this morning, especially at Atlanta-Hartsfied Jackson Airport, where the issue was first noticed.
