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What's Up with the Oneworld Airline Alliance in 2013

There's been some big, exciting news in the aviation world, and some bankruptcies and some mergers that cross the lines of traditional airline alliances. These shake-ups will redraw alliance lines and might affect your ability to earn and burn frequent flyer miles to your dream destination. Let's discuss Oneworld since the recent American and US Airways merger will mean the most for US-based travelers.

We already know that the New American will be sticking with Oneworld, which means the inevitable departure of US Airways from Star Alliance. In general, this doesn't open up a wealth of new US destinations, but it actually expands an already thorough South American network and opens a few new European cities to Oneworld.

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What It's Like to Fly for 10 Hours on a Boeing 787 Dreamliner

It flies! It actually flies!

The Boeing 787 Dreamliner is a headline hog. You can read all about it and its drama (lately more than ever) throughout major media, but there's nothing better than actually stepping onboard with a ticket to ride.

After more than a year of hanging out with the 787 on the tarmac, we finally flew the darned thing as South American airline LAN celebrated the inaugural flight of their new Los Angeles-to-Santiago, Chile 10-hour non-stop with the spiffy new bird.

So, what actually happens onboard a 787 flight? Is it really so different from any other airplane? Having just stepped off of this, our first 787 flight, we can finally answer those questions: lots of stuff and yes.

To describe a 10-hour flight is akin to boring neighbors with photo slides of a water park vacation. Instead, we're breaking it down into the hourly highlights ("the short of it") and, for those rapt with pleasure for every detail, the long of it, in first-person:

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Jaunted Reporting Live / Aviation / 787 / Airplanes / New Routes / Boeing / LATAM / Photo Gallery / Boeing 787 / LAN 787 / Boeing 787 Dreamliner / 787 Dreamliner / Dreamliner / LAN / South America Travel / LAX / Los Angeles Travel / SCL / Santiago Travel / → All Tags

Celebrating LAX's First 787 Flight: LAN 603 Non-Stop to Santiago, Chile

While this week hasn't exactly been all sunshine and rainbows for airlines flying their Boeing 787 Dreamliners around the world, last week sure was. On January 2, we stepped onboard aircraft CC-BBC, the gleaming new third 787 delivered to South American airline LAN for what would be a monumental inaugural flight, non-stop from Los Angeles-LAX to Santiago, Chile-SCL.

Our ticket read seat 1L. As the first row, first window on the right, that's practically a cockpit jumpseat (though our legroom and recline would be better). This would be more than a first 787 flight from LAX; it would be our own, personal first 787 flight. To say we were psyched is a gross understatement. The energy and optimism rippled through the line of waiting passengers in all classes, holding all types of tickets, as a special party for the full flight began at the gate.

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Airline Mergers / Airline News / Airlines / LAN / TAM / Airline Industry / LATAM / → All Tags

South America's TAM and LAN Airlines to Combine Letters, Planes and Pilots

There’s a little bit of alphabet soup going on south of the equator. LAN Airlines of Chile and TAM Airlines or Brazil are thinking about shacking up to serve as South America’s largest airline. We do need to get to Brazil for the summer Olympics, so maybe we’ll get to check out the combined airline sooner than later.

Together the combined airline will be known as LATAM Airlines Group, and will include the two airlines as well as some affiliates and cargo operations. Like all airline mergers and buddying up there’s all kind of rules and regulations to follow, so it’s far from a done deal just yet. Both airlines need to work out all the details, but they did pass notes and confirmed that they like each other by circling yes—so we think they’ll be good-to-go.

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