Salon’s Ask the Pilot column has a nice piece about what happens when your flight is twice diverted to other airports, causing a 24 hour delay (which is what happened to Patrick Smith, the writer of the column).  The most interesting tidbit:  the pilot and co-pilot flipped a coin over who would make the unhappy [...]

The European Union, UK and US passed an open skies agreement that would allow for greater airline access between the areas.  Airlines will be free to fly from any country in the EU to the United States (currently, for the most part, airlines can only fly from their home country to the US).  This is, [...]

(I’ll give credit where it’s due, USA Today has been all over this story):
In case you thought only airlines based in Equatorial Guinea and Kyrgyzstan got closed down for safety practices, look no further than Tennessee,  where the FAA foreced regional carrier RegionsAir to shutter its doors.  Initially the airline said that the closure was [...]

After many, many months of haggling, Virgin America received tentative approval to fly, assuming they make a handful of changes (new CEO, re-finance some of the investment).  The airline should now launch with San Francisco to New York service in mid-summer, with additional transcon flights coming later in the year.  As always, more competition is [...]

Officials at Miami’s airport are reminding passengers that you cannot carry duty free liquor on the plane because of the insanely stupid rule about having liquid in 3 ounce or smaller quantities.  Officials at the airport confiscated more than 6,000 pounds of liquor in February alone (yes, pounds.  For whatever reason that’s how they measured [...]

A Fiennes mess he’s gotten into:
Just when I swore I would never mention the Ralph Fiennes mile high tryst again, they keep pulling me back in:
The flight attendant who had the previously discussed unprotected sex with Mr. Fiennes in an airplane bathroom now says that she used to be a high priced prostitute in Sydney.  [...]

The Wall Street Journal has a good article (sorry, subscription required) today about how to complain to an airline.  A couple of good points:  don’t say you’ll never fly them again (let’s be honest, no matter how bad an experience you have, you’ll fly the airline again; be succinct with your complaint (you’ll feel good [...]

British Airways has apologized (or in their case, apologised) for upgrading a passenger who died mid-flight to first class.
I’ll explain.  A passenger on a London to Delhi flight died mid-flight.  According to the article, due to turbulence her body repeatedly slipped down off her coach seat (this is awful).  BA inflight staff moved her to [...]

It’s not too late to head over to LAX or JFK, where A380s will be landing for the first time on US soil at 12:30 pm Eastern and 9:30 am Pacific time.

The NY Times has a pretty good article about the guy at Southwest Airlines whose job it is to write apology letters for when something weird happens on a flight (some examples are here).  Well worth a read.