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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.
Tags: Air Canada / Seats / Airline Fees / Airline News / → All Tags
Air Canada Gets Into The Fee-For-All With Exit Row Seat Charges
Air Canada has been busy spending lots of cash on stuff like iPhone Apps, in-flight WiFi, and snazzy software for your Blackberry. This stuff all costs money, and like all other airlines, the money probably isn’t just pouring in up in Canada. So the country’s flagship carrier is opening up the fee and charge toolbox in hopes of finding a good way to boost revenue.
The airline will begin to charge for seats with more room to stretch out your legs. That means scoring an exit row or bulkhead seat with the online seat selector has become a thing of the past. It will set you back at least $14 each way to reserve one of those seats. We do love getting an exit seat, but it’s kind of sad that we are willing to pay for an upgrade—after all, it’s still coach.
Tags: Airline Safety / Qantas / Airline Hell / Airline News / → All Tags
Qantas Blames 'Cosmic Rays' For Last Year's Roller Coaster-Like Flight
We have a pretty decent respect for Aussie airline Qantas, with its better-than-average safety record and generally trouble-free flights (of course, we're not impressed by the recent beer ban on some flights, but it probably was in the name of safety, so who are we to complain). And now we can feel a little better about last year's mid-air drama over Western Australia, because investigators are blaming cosmic rays.
You might vaguely remember that in October last year, a Qantas flight from Singapore made an emergency landing after some rollercoaster action: it suddenly plunged 650 feet, got back up again then fell 400 feet. This led to some serious passenger injuries (no deaths, though) and a whole lot of serious questions. At the time, a lot of people were blaming passengers using laptops and other electronic devices.
Tags: Pet Travel / El Al / Airline News / Airlines / → All Tags
El Al Wants To Make Sure Your Pets Are Getting Plenty Of Travel Love
Israeli airline El Al is very proud of having a pet frequent flyer club, where your dog or cat will get a free trip for every three round-trips they survive. What's more, El Al has been kind enough to offer us some tips on flying with our pets, and speaking as people who've never done it, we think they sound like good ideas.
The most important tips seem to be to exercise your pet shortly before the flight, but feed him a few hours beforehand to avoid a poor air-sick doggy. El Al also suggests getting the appropriate pet carrier far enough in advance that your pet can get used to the contraption before they're stuck in it on a flight.
Tags: Spirit Airlines / Airline News / Low Cost Carriers / LCCs / → All Tags
Spirit Airlines Apologizes Two Years Too Late
We guess it’s better late than never when it comes to customer service, but two years is certainly a long time. That’s the deal with one unhappy customer from Florida who complained out loud—thanks to the Internet—about an awful experience with Spirit Airlines. We’ve heard about their less than stellar service before, so we weren’t totally surprised to learn about this latest issue.
Alex Rudloff didn’t like his trip on Spirit, and titled a post on his blog “Do Not Fly Spirit Airlines.” Well soon enough, if you typed in Spirit Airlines into everyone’s favorite search engine, the post appeared as first page material—ahead of even some of the company’s official pages and the Wikipedia article. Obviously this got his site a lot of attention and probably made a lot of potential travelers question whipping out the credit card to start booking. Since then things have quieted down, but something a little strange happened the other day.
Tags: Airline News / Airline Industry / Thanksgiving Travel / Christmas Travel / Holiday Travel / → All Tags
Thanksgiving Travel Down, Prices Going Up Anyway
Fewer than one in five Americans are planning to cut back on their Thanksgiving spending, but almost one-third are curbing their overall holiday travel this season. That's not going to devastate the airline world, since a lot of that travel would have happened by car anyway. And to be honest we kind of like the excuse: "sorry uncle and aunt so and so—we'd love to come over and have our annual fight about whether Obama's birth certificate is real, but we just can't afford the gas in this recession."
But the scaling back is still going to be enough to take a bite out of the industry:
