Continental Airlines has been running this commercial (at least in the New York area), and I have found it to be somewhere between Dane Cook and Two and a Half Men on the annoying scale.  Passengers on a plane stare out the window longingly at clouds that float by in the shape of food products. [...]

How bad is the front cabin for US airlines?  This bad:  Continental revealed in its March numbers that its RASM (revenue per available seat mile – a rough gauge of average fare) dropped 19% in March over last year.  While coach fares have certainly been lower, it’s the front cabin that would contribute to drops [...]

The scumbag lawyers at Gibson Law Firm display an impressive lack of taste and respect today when they sent out this press release noting that three additional passengers involved in a Continental Airlines crash in Denver in December have sued the airline. Yes, they released this on the same day as the crash in Buffalo.
I [...]

All of us who write about this industry do it because we are fascinated with flight.  Especially for those of us who don’t have an engineering background, the idea that a large hunk of metal can somehow get off the ground and take us 6,000 miles away in a few hours will never cease to [...]

Continental sent an email to frequent flyers last night letting them know that the airline will be leaving the SkyTeam alliance on October 24th.  Theoretically they’ll be joining Star Alliance the next day (or so).  I know that a lot of Continental flyers pooh-poohed SkyTeam (and are pretty excited about flying on Singapore in Star [...]

I figure January is a much better time than December to look into the patented OTR Looking Glass ™ to pull predictions out of my ass (er…closely analyze the airline industry) to see what the next year is going to look like.  My thoughts:
- Wi-fi, Wi-fi, Wi-fi.  Wi-fi will be widely available on US airlines [...]

On Friday, United announced a new strategy to try to improve on-time performance: bonuses. The company will give $100 for ranking in first, and $65 for a second-place finish or reaching a company goal (which wasn’t explained in the press release).
According to the most recent Air Travel Consumer Report, United’s on-time performance hasn’t been the [...]

(Thanks, View from the Wing)
It looks like Northwest is beginning to make its push away from Continental, albeit in a small way:

You can read the details at Cranky’s website here, but you’ll be happy to know that Continental will be installing Live TV featuring 80 (yes 80) channels beginning early next year.  Look for the full roll-out on its domestic fleet over the course of 2009.  Continental’s in-flight entertainment has been subpar, and this, plus in-flight [...]

Continental heard the whining, and now they’re making a change:  After announcing that they were removing the 500 mile minimum for short flights, they have reversed that for Elite members and will continue to give 500 miles for short flights.  Nicely done.
(The longer version is that Copa Airlines, Aero República, Hawaiian Air, Island Air, U.S. [...]