Archive for May 2006

Passengers Arrested For Upgrading Themselves

May 9th, 2006 | By Jared Blank

14 Passengers on a Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flight from Islamabad, Pakistan, to Manchester, England, were arrested after they upgraded themselves to first class from the crowded coach section of a 747.  Economy class on the aircraft was quite full while the premium section went empty, so these 14 people (and who the hell can [...]

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US Pilots Head Overseas for Work

May 8th, 2006 | By Jared Blank

There’s a pretty good article in Friday’s Wall Street Journal about US pilots taking jobs overseas because they’re paid much better in, say, Dubai than they are in, say, Pittsburgh.  Worth a read…

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What Happened to the Boeing 717

May 8th, 2006 | By Jared Blank

For those of you interested in why the Boeing 717 failed (and you know who you are), the Long Beach Press-Telegram has a pretty in-depth article about the aircraft.  (In short, the plane — which Boeing inherited from McDonnell Douglas and was originally the DC-9 — was viewed as a competitor to the wildly successful [...]

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Passengers Detained for Not Speaking English…Sort Of

May 7th, 2006 | By Jared Blank

5 passengers–4 Angolans and an Israel–on an American Airlines flight from Dallas to Newark were detained for 3 hours because they were carrying pilot training materials and speaking a language other than English.  Turns out that the 5 men were heading home after attending a pilot training course (hence the pilot training materials).  This craziness [...]

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Man Slips on Watermelon, Sues Airport

May 5th, 2006 | By Jared Blank

The title sorta says it all:  a British businessman traveling through Dubai’s airport is suing said airport because he slipped on a piece of watermelon and hurt himself.  For some reason, he feels this is worth about $550,000.

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Can You Open a Plane Door In Mid-Air?

May 5th, 2006 | By Jared Blank

Salon’s always good Ask the Pilot column examines a story from a couple of weeks ago where a passenger was arrested for trying to open one of the plane’s door’s in mid-air.  If you ever wondered about this, wonder no more:  it is nearly impossible to open a door in mid-air because of the pressurization [...]

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Standing Room Seats? Uh, Not True

May 4th, 2006 | By Jared Blank

I will give full credit here to long-time reader IAHPHX for excuse me here, calling bullshit on last week’s story about standing room only seats in the NY Times.  The Times issued a correction (last one on the page) saying that Airbus had looked into the seats in 2003, but dismissed the idea.  It also [...]

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EOS Airlines Lowers Prices to $1475 Each Way to London

May 4th, 2006 | By Jared Blank

EOS Airlines, which flies all first class seats to London from New York, has lowered fares to $1,475 each way.  The airline had originally hoped to get $3200 each way, has lowered prices in a bid to win traffic from the myriad other airlines flying the same route.  EOS’ seats and service are at least [...]

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$580 Summer Round Trip Fares to Scandanavia, Poland and Baltics

May 4th, 2006 | By Jared Blank

(via Travelzoo)SAS has been running some great summer fare specials, and today’s is among the best:  $580 gets you a round trip ticket from New York or Chicago to a bunch of cities in Scandanavia (including Oslo, Copenhagen and Stockholm) as well as Poland and the Baltics (Latvia, Lithuania or Estonia).  Best part?  It’s good [...]

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Armenian A320 Crashes in Black Sea

May 3rd, 2006 | By Jared Blank

An Armavia Airlines A320 crashed into the Black Sea, killing all 113 aboard.  The flight on Armenia’s largest airline was headed to Sochi, Russia, when it crashed on approach to the airport.

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