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Inside the Oasis Lounge at New York-JFK's Terminal 4

Where: JFK International Airport [map], New York , NY, United States
February 6, 2012 at 10:24 AM | by | Comments (2)

So you're flying Business Class on the Singapore Airlines A380? Or maybe you're heading out in business class on any of the other airlines that call JFK Terminal 4 home, among them Aer Lingus. After checking in for your flight but before heading through security, you'll be directed to chill in the Oasis Lounge on the mezzanine above the main hubbub of the terminal.

On your walk over to the lounge, you'll see the Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse (don't get too jealous; it's going to be replaced by an even better Clubhouse soon) and you'll pass near the four prayer rooms of JFK. That's about the end of the excitement, however, as the Oasis Lounge is pretty standard lounge fare with the exception of free booze and stellar views of the tarmac.

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Finally! JetBlue Releases Its First iPhone App: The Full Review

February 3, 2012 at 11:11 AM | by | Comments (0)

Alright. What's the one thing you've been waiting forever for from JetBlue? Duh, in-flight WiFi...besides that. Yes, a freaking iPhone app!

Well, late last night while thoughts of Terra Blue Chips and direct flights to Santo Domingo danced through your heads, the airline's very first iPhone app quietly snuck out into the iTunes app store. It's free of course, and blue and orange, but is it any good?

To keep our opinions short and sweet, yes—it's sooooo good. Like, spread-the-word good. Even if you've never flown JetBlue and don't have any upcoming flights booked, we'd say get the thing for its well-designed flight search and booking (wanderlust fodder right there) and cute little extras, like the ability to use your iPhone photos to create funky postcards, shared straight from the app.

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It's Official, Just Blame Your Airline Delay Squarely on New York City

February 2, 2012 at 9:08 AM | by | Comments (0)

The next time you’re stuck in the terminal—or on the tarmac—with nowhere to go, there’s now officially someone to blame for your delay and disturbance. It’s actually not a person but more of a place, as it’s New York City that’s likely the spot causing all of the trouble.

The New York Times looked into the causes behind a lot of these airport and airplane inconveniences, and they found that the city’s busy air traffic and multiple airports are the places to blame. There’s been different flight plans from the FAA and even less planes overall thanks to the dip in the economy, but that still hasn’t helped the congestion up in the skies above the greater metropolitan area. Apparently the city’s three major airports—along with the airport in Philadelphia—accounted for around 12 percent of all the country’s domestic flights, but those few flights created like half of all delays.

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All Sorts of South America Travel News from LAN Airlines

February 1, 2012 at 4:53 PM | by | Comments (0)

Okay everyone, ready for some serious South America travel news? So LAN—which is really a group of airlines including LAN Chile, LAN Ecuador, LAN Argentina, LAN Express and LAN Colombia—made all kinds of changes, for the better, to their routes and in-flight service today, February 1.

· First off, LAN Colombia (which only really started as an airline in December 2012 after LAN took over Colombian airline AIRES) is now flying direct from Miami to Bogota. The inaugural hit the skies earlier today, complete with a visit from Juan Valdez, who served the passengers their in-flight coffees. Fares for this new route, which runs four times weekly on Airbus A320s, are $400 roundtrip, including taxes & fees, if booked by February 6. Of course, you can go straight through to booking via their Facebook page.

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Peeking into JFK Airport's Religious Prayer Rooms

Where: JFK International Airport [map], New York, NY, United States
January 31, 2012 at 6:42 PM | by | Comments (0)


The Catholic room

Got some extra time at New York-JFK Airport? Instead of grabbing another Auntie Anne's pretzel or buying an "I <3 NY" magnet for your second cousin, perhaps wander on over to the prayer rooms instead. Yes, prayer rooms.

The departures level at Terminal 4, before security, has four prayer rooms for different religions: Muslim, Protestant, Catholic and Jewish. When we passed by recently, we noticed that the Catholic one was in the middle of actual mass, and indeed they offer it daily excepting Wednesdays (M: 5pm, Tu: 12:15pm, Th: 5pm, F: 12:15pm, Sa: 5pm, Su: 1pm).

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Two Minutes of Time-Lapse from a Hall at Houston Airport

Where: JFK International Airport [map], New York, NY, United States
January 30, 2012 at 10:30 AM | by | Comments (0)

While we freely admit that when it comes to airport time-lapse videos, ones of airplanes zipping around that tarmac are definitely our favorite. Recently, however, YouTube user Ross Johnson, aka Tumbles94—whose tilt-shift videos from Frankfurt Airport featured before—turned his camera inside an airport to capture the bustle of a busy terminal.

Travelers toting carry-ons and last-minute purchases in plastic bags littler the scene. Ross had some nerve sitting in the middle of a busy hall at Houston-George Bush International's Terminal E for 30 minutes, capturing all this.

We love it for what it reveals about the average traveler on (mostly) Continental Airlines flights from IAH: the vast majority are solo travelers, with duos here and there. Many men wear "dad jeans," but few ever stop and look lost. Cameos from the golf cart!

Enjoy. (And thanks again to Ross Johnson for spending his layovers taking these vids!)

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Onboard the Singapore Airlines A380: The Little Things

January 26, 2012 at 3:15 PM | by | Comments (0)

The Jaunted Singapore A380 Series:

1. The Grand Tour
2. The Singapore Girls
3. Eating (and drinking) all the way to Singapore
4. Everything you ever wanted to know about Business Class
5. Design details

Reaching the end of our series on flying the Singapore Airlines A380, it's time to look back and well...just look closer.

Paying attention to the design details means that the airlines will have to pay attention to them as well. And, let's face it, when recounting a particularly great flight, you'll utter a sentence something like this: "Oh, it was so nice...I slept and ate well and they had [detail], [detail] and [detail]!" Personally for us—on the SQ A380—we'd fill those spots with "Givenchy linens," "the cutest stackable salt & pepper shakers," and "an onboard sommelier."

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Onboard the Singapore Airlines A380: All About Business Class

Where: Singapore
January 25, 2012 at 11:04 AM | by | Comments (0)

The Jaunted Singapore A380 Series:

1. The Grand Tour
2. The Singapore Girls
3. Eating (and drinking) all the way to Singapore
4. Everything you ever wanted to know about Business Class
5. Design details

First, let us begin by saying that although we flew this baby in biz, we would absolutely go for it in economy as well. Or in Suites Class? You know the answer to that question. Still, Singapore Airlines is known for their business class product—there's the leather seats so wide two people can comfortably sit and chat, the Givenchy china and linens, the flight attendants who greet you by name even when you're away from 25D, and (of course) the fact that they blow other airlines' First Class out of the water. We're just stating facts here.

And actually, it's this better-than-first-class-business-class on Singapore which makes the JFK-FRA-SIN route so famous among frequent flyers. Sure, there are other airline options for flying from New York to Frankfurt, but if you can expense it or redeem miles, business on SQ is typically top choice among those who know about these things.

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Onboard the Singapore Airlines A380: In-Flight Dining and Drinking

January 23, 2012 at 4:36 PM | by | Comments (0)

The Jaunted Singapore A380 Series:

1. The Grand Tour
2. The Singapore Girls
3. Eating (and drinking) all the way to Singapore
4. Everything you ever wanted to know about Business Class
5. Design details

One time we actually attempted to cook a recipe straight from the Singapore Airlines cookbook. We're amateurs, but after watching the firsthand preparation of a service previously, we had some confidence. Truth be told, what we accomplished on land in a large kitchen will never equal what's enjoyed by passengers at 37,000 feet.

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Onboard the Singapore Airlines A380: The Iconic Singapore Girl

January 20, 2012 at 5:14 PM | by | Comments (0)

The Jaunted Singapore A380 Series:

1. The Grand Tour
2. The Singapore Girls
3. Eating (and drinking) all the way to Singapore
4. Everything you ever wanted to know about Business Class
5. Design details

This is how you usually spot The Singapore Girl: whizzing through an airport in a swirl of color, turning heads with her poise, polite smile and designer luggage. And then, just like that, The Singapore Girl has vanished beyond the security check and you're left wondering...who is she? where is she off to next? how does she keep her figure?

Naturally there are answers to all these questions, some of which we've discovered over the last few days in Singapore, both from flying for 20+ hours with them on the inaugural Singapore Airlines A380 flight on the route JFK - FRA - SIN and from visiting the official SIA Training Facility near Changi Airport.

Spoiler alert: The Singapore Girl keeps her figure thanks to "extracurricular activities..."

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Onboard the Singapore Airlines A380: The Grand Tour

January 19, 2012 at 3:38 PM | by | Comments (4)

On Monday, January 16, the massive Singapore Airlines Airbus A380 took off on its inaugural flight for the epic route JFK - FRA - SIN. This is flight number SQ 25, and we'll be sharing tons of details and photos from it for the next several days.

The Jaunted Singapore A380 Series:

1. The Grand Tour
2. The Singapore Girl
3. Eating (and drinking) all the way to Singapore
4. Everything you ever wanted to know about Business Class
5. Design details

We're going to be totally straight with you; jetting off into the sky onboard an Airbus A380 makes our eyes well up a bit. No, it's not quite tears, but it is being overwhelmed by the thoughts surrounding what exactly is happening right then. It's the fact that one can be cozy in an engineering masterpiece, a double-decker airplane, which can lift off from the ground as gracefully as any tiny aircraft and then manage to fly to places it once took weeks of travel to reach by uncomfortable boat.

On this route, the famous SQ 25 running New York-JFK to Frankfurt to Singapore, Singapore Airlines has now traded the 747 for this fresh A380, an upgrade on every level and totally deserved by passengers who spend over 20 hours traveling on it. Just before zipping away on this first run, we quickly snooped around the plane, peeking into all the leather-lined nooks and meticulously clean crannies to discover just why the Singapore A380s have been causing a hubbub since debuting in 2007.

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Wait. The TSA Intercepts How Many Guns Per Day in Airports?

January 18, 2012 at 2:02 PM | by | Comment (1)

Ideally we'd like to spend this post criticizing TSA for various inadequacies implicit and explicit. There's something not quite right about the agency's new "we'll retest for radiation levels but not really" announcement on full-body scanners, especially given its extensive and well-documented past dissembling on the issue. There are still issues to discuss from last year about the contradictions in pushing for private TSA baggage screeners. We'd like to know why it was necessary to tase a traveler to the point of hospitalization at the Sacramento International Airport. Someone should ask what steps are being taken to prevent a repeat of the $40,000-stealing TSA agent. And isn't there something wrong with airport security when $400,000 worth of coins are getting left at security every year by flustered travelers?

But we can't talk about any of that, because people won't stop trying to bring weapons on airplanes. Especially guns. Lots and lots of guns. So instead of this post being about the many ways TSA makes traveling worse, it's about one very specific way that travelers make traveling worse.

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