The NY Times is reporting that Delta and Northwest are close to announcing a merger, an announcement of which will supposedly be shortly followed by Continental and United joining forces.
You’ll read plenty of commentary about these mergers elsewhere, so you don’t need me to analyze the minutia, but let me say this: if you thought [...]
(Thanks to View from the Wing)
US Airways is really sticking it to the man — and, in this case, you’re the man: The airline has eliminated 500 mile frequent flyer minimums for short flights so you now only earn actual miles flown. If you’re flying a bunch of connections on US Airways, you’ll be wasting [...]
Ah the good old days. Remember back in 2005 when Delta introduced SimpliFares and they were going to cap fares at $599 each way and end Saturday night stays? Those days are looooooong gone.
This article notes that a number of airlines (including Continental, American, United and Northwest) have re-introduced Saturday night [...]
Everyone and their mother will comment on the news about Delta exploring mergers with either Northwest or United, so I don’t need to pile on to that other than to say what many have already said before: airline mergers are notoriously difficult for many reasons (labor, operations, technology), and few have succeeded. Putting two not-quite-strong-enough [...]
Read the Rest of the Story: Delta: Maybe that Merger Stuff Wasn’t Such a Bad IdeaA quick follow-up on the One-Two-Go! crash in Phuket last week. A number of stories I’ve read pointed to the age of the airplane possibly being a factor (as does nearly every story about any plane crash). It is important to note here that planes do not crash because they are old. Northwest is flying [...]
Read the Rest of the Story: A Word about Older AirplanesYou may (or may not) remember that Northwest announced nonstop flights from LaGuardia to Dallas as a way of getting back at American for launching nonstop flights from LaGuardia to Minneapolis. Well, they’ve come to their senses and have decided not to launch that flight, instead using the slots to fly nonstop to unserved markets [...]
Read the Rest of the Story: Northwest: Forget about Those LaGuardia-Dallas FlightsThe worst summer for air travel in recent memory is wrapping up, and we can only hope that the problems that have seemingly plagued every other flight will abate a bit. I feel that every work related gathering includes tales of flights gone awry. My wife had another flight canceled last Thursday — every one [...]
Read the Rest of the Story: Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest WordYou’ll can certainly read more about this elsewhere, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that Delta has named former Northwest CEO Richard Anderson as their new chief executive. Anderson is known for making tough but fair decisions, though Northwest lost a nice chunk o’ change under his leadership. Although I’m not expecting a [...]
Read the Rest of the Story: Delta Names New CEOThis week marks the 20th anniversary of the crash of Northwest flight 255 outside of Detroit, an accident that killed all but 1 of the 155 people on board the flight to Phoenix. You may remember that, miraculously, a 4 year old girl named Cecelia Cichan was the sole survivor of the flight. The link [...]
Read the Rest of the Story: Northwest Flight 255 Crash, 20 Years LaterTwo odd incidents in the past week where stuff has fallen off a plane into people’s yards:
A 2 foot piece of metal from a Northwest DC-9 fell into a family’s yard in Wisconsin last week. No one was injured. Said the home’s owner: "I was coming out with the
laundry basket to hang my laundry, and [...]
