Jaunted

Retro Travel / Airline Bankruptcy / Pan Am / Eastern Air Lines / Braniff / Midway Airlines / Olympic Air / Sabena / Ansett / Airline Industry / → All Tags

Seven of Our Favorite Defunct Airlines of Yesteryear

It sure seems like a number of world airlines have been closing up shop recently. Last week, we saw two European carriers cease operations and call it quits. Barcelona-based, Spanair, and the Hungarian flag carrier, Malev, both abruptly stopped flying, stranding passengers all over the continent. Of course, these latest casualties are not the only airlines to make their final approaches.

Let's take a trip down memory lane and reminisce of those airlines we never forget and, secretly, wish we could still fly. These brands never had an iPhone app, some barely had a website, but they will always play a role in the golden age of air travel.

Some of favorite defunct airlines, in no particular order:

more ›

Airline Bankruptcies / Spanair / Air Comet / Spanish Travel / Airline Industry / Airline News / Travel News / → All Tags

Spanair Shuts Down, Airline Industry Poised for Even Worse in 2012

The San Francisco Chronicle wants you to know that everything is alright with the airline industry. U.S.-based airlines are turning profits, and US Airways' President even says there's zero evidence of "macroeconomic weakness" to be found.

That will be news to Spanair,, which collapsed so fast on Friday that it left 20,000 travelers stranded with no return flights home (the good press they got from giving passengers Christmas presents failed to stem the tide of millions and millions in losses). Spanair's shuttering follows the closing of Spain's Air Comet, whose flight attendants subsequently had to do nude photo shoots just to draw attention to the €7 million in unpaid wages they were owed.

more ›

British Airways / Airline Industry / Baggage Fees / Checked Baggage / → All Tags

Something's Not Quite Right with British Airways' Online Check-in

This screenshot will not go far in dispelling the rumor that what passes as British circumspection is just their passive-aggressive way of insisting that you do things their way.

What you're looking at is Step 2 of the 5-step online check-in process for British Airways. It appears that something is missing, but no worries. It's not as if you'd want to give travelers as many relevant options as possible, what with how we're living in an era of reduced baggage allowances and heightened baggage fees even on international flights.

Keep in mind that there was a person, presumably with a background in programming in mathematics and programming, who created this. Then there was a person, undoubtedly with experience in the airline industry, who approved it. At some point wouldn't you think that someone would, you know, say something?

UPDATE: The kind folks at BA emailed us to say they're on it...

[Screenshot: Jaunted]

EasyJet / LCCs / LCC / Ryanair / Airline Industry / Seats / Seating / → All Tags

EasyJet Will Assign You That Seat, Thank You Very Much

On one hand, EasyJet shows all the signs of being an ultra-budget LCC. The airline isn't as obnoxious about their exorbitant fees and/or lack of services as Spirit Airlines or Ryanair, but they did pointedly ring up Prince Harry on a bunch of fees the last time he flew with them. They even charged him extra for checking through his green army bag, which was issued to him while he was serving in Afghanistan, among other places. Thoroughly charming.

On the other hand, the British airline has made a number of moves implying that they want to be something more than a "frugal LCC" also-ran. They've led the way on genuinely innovative features like offering in-flight trip insurance, and they were the first UK commercial airline to coat their planes with nano-paint so they could fly more efficiently.

more ›

Qantas / Australia Travel / Australia / New Zealand / Airlines News / Airline Industry / Airline Strikes / Frequent Flyer Miles / → All Tags

How Does a Red Kangaroo Say 'I'm Sorry?'

We already talked about how the CEO of Qantas decided to counter industrial action by shutting down the complete worldwide operations. Since that weekend, Qantas is back up in the skies with a new motto, "Book with confidence and certainty," and a lot of explaining to do for the more than 70,000 passengers that were left stranded.

Leaving travelers stranded and with unanswered questions, Qantas had to do something. During the shutdown, the company offered to reimburse those who needed to re-book on different airlines, even pay the difference of airfares. For those who decided to stay in the city in which they were stranded, Qantas paid hotels, meals and phone calls up to a certain amount. If you were one of the unlucky passengers and you're still struggling to figure out what you get from all this, visit Qantas' website for more details.

more ›

AirAsia / Malaysia Travel / Airline Industry / Caterham Jet / RedQ / New Airlines / Airline News / Airlines / → All Tags

AirAsia Boss Launching Another Malaysian Airline, for Some Reason

Demonstrating impressive complete disregard for the liklihood of a global financial meltdown, AirAsia boss Tony Fernandes is launching a premium Malaysian airline to run shuttles between Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Jakarta and Singapore.

Dubbed Caterham Jet, the regional airline will cater to business executives rich enough to pay for ultra-premium flights but not so rich that they have access to private jets. We're presuming people like that exist, but it seems like kind of a specialized demographic. Even worse, it's the exact demographic that Qantas is already targeting with their new RedQ airline.

Global economic retraction plus niche customer base plus direct competition from Qantas equals...no way this works, right? We're quite sure they had focus groups and market studies and everything, but this just doesn't sound like the kind of thing that would work.

more ›

Qantas / Air France / Virgin Australia / Airline Industry / Airline Strikes / Air Canada / Air India / → All Tags

Winter Airline Strike News Getting Better and Better

As the airline industry settles in for a winter of labor turmoil, we here at Jaunted are becoming resigned to what will be an endless series of airline strike stories. And while we could just update you with lines like "were you thinking of going to [destination X that's totally hosed] some time soon? If so, don't"—that seems just a little bit flippant. Although if you were thinking of going to Canada, France, Australia, or India some time soon, there's a good chance you're going to want to consider travelers' insurance.

A few days ago we told you that the Qantas and Air France strikes were winding down, which was technically true. As of yesterday Qantas had resumed all flights and Air France was operating at 90%. But—because this is how things are going to go now, apparently—none of the issues have been resolved. So everything could kick up again before the month is over.

more ›

Travel Advertising / Airline Industry / Airline News / Travel Ads / → All Tags

USA Today is Pretty Bummed Out Over In-Plane Advertising

There's an old Simpsons line about USA Today, where Homer tells Lisa that the newspaper isn't afraid to tell America the truth, which is that "everything is just fine." So when the country's second-largest newspaper notices that travel advertising on airlines has gotten kind of obnoxious, there's a decent chance that things have actually reached crisis proportions.

And in fairness, so-called "ambient advertising" has definitely gotten out of hand on American airlines. Led by Spirit Airlines—of course, because who else—there are logos and patches even on the uniforms of flight attendants.

We're long past the days when it was controversial to put ads on the backs of magazines or even on tray tables, and we've all seen pitches for cars and restaurants included on print-at-home boarding passes. So the actual "yes advertising is everywhere now" part of the article is definitely true. We were just surprised to learn that anybody cared.

more ›

Airline Strikes / Qantas / Australia / Australia Travel / Airline Industry / Politics Travel / Travel News / Airline News / → All Tags

Is the Qantas Shutdown the Beginning of a Winter of Airline Strikes?

Australia's flagship carrier Qantas had been having labor problems for months. Within the last few weeks the union representing the airline's mechanics, pilots, baggage handlers and caterers escalated the dispute, launching a series of rolling work stoppages that triggered dozens of cancellations and created general chaos.

Then, over the weekend, Qantas CEO Alan Joyce re-raised by straight-up shutting down the airline, essentially forcing the situation.

As management no doubt hoped would happen, a hastily-called court brought the parties together, turned to the unions, and told them to get back to work. Qantas will now spend the next few days picking itself off the floor as flights begin again. Our backgrounder on the strike itself and the slow recovery is here, including details on how the airline tried to mitigate the pain over the weekend.

more ›

Ryanair / LCCs / Airline Industry / Travel News / Ireland Travel / Britain Travel / London Stansted / Michael O'Leary / → All Tags

After Mind-Blowing Safety Lapse, Ryanair Promises Massive Expansion with Help of 'Cheap' Planes

There are two airline industry news stories about Irish LCC Ryanair floating around this week, and we'll leave you to decide the precise degree to which they're related. We're specifying "airline industry" stories, in contrast to just Ryanair stories "in general," to emphasize that these are different from the fake "no frills" PR branding nonsense that Ryanair endlessly pushes into the travel journalism newsstream (e.g. this near self-parody of a CNN story headlined "Ryanair's 5 'cheapest' money-saving schemes"). These are actual news stories, as much as is possible with these guys.

First up, Ryanair's the-customer-is-always-wrong CEO Michael O'Leary just announced a massive expansion of the airline. Ryanair will reportedly purchase over 200 new airplanes from US, Chinese and Russian plane manufacturers, a total that would easily make the airline one of the world's largest. O'Leary is promising that the planes will come at "cheap prices."

more ›

Bad Ideas / TSA / Politics Travel / Airport Security / Airline Security / Congress / Airline Industry / Airports / → All Tags

TSA Getting Yelled At By Just About Everyone Now

We're almost beginning to feel sorry for the TSA officials. They spend much of their time dealing with what appear to be the world's dumbest passengers, and then at the end of it all they get yelled at by angry politicians. This week is proving to be particularly bad.

Top agency officials spent most of today facing withering criticism from Senators, up to and including the accusation that they show "arrogant disregard for real Americans who have to put up with this baloney." We're not really sure what that means, and we tend to cringe when politicians start posturing on behalf of "real Americans," but certainly TSA workers have been a little grabby lately with diabetics' insulin and cancer survivors' body parts and other people's stuff in general.

These Senate hearings are almost kind of Congress's way of piling on, given that House members were outright calling for investigations of TSA over the summer.

more ›

Overweight Passengers / LCCs / Southwest / AirTran / Southwest Airlines / Airline News / Airline Industry / Seats / Seating / → All Tags

AirTran Adopting Southwest's Weigh More, Pay More Guidelines

Southwest's infamous "customers of size" policy—where if you need a seat and a half you have to purchase two seats—was the cause of one of the airline world's most notorious social media disasters. So naturally Southwest is having its recently purchased airline AirTran adopt the exact same set of guidelines, because that's one of the ways they keep down costs. Another way was described a few months ago in an Associated Press article headlined "US airlines make money again by flying less," which doesn't really have anything to do with this post but is obnoxious enough to be worth mentioning.

In any case, AirTran will implement the new policy starting March 1 of 2012. Following Southwest's lead, if a customer can't lower their armrest they have to purchase two seats. If two seats aren't available on a particular flight, other arrangements will presumably be made, almost certainly combining the usual "you need to get off this plane" humiliation and the "we'll get you on a later flight with more seats" reassurance. As with Southwest, a passenger on a below-capacity flight can request a refund for the second seat's cost.

more ›