Recent Stories

Pilot Gets Angry at Misbehaving Passengers, Kicks Everyone Off Plane and Flies Empty

Jul 1st, 2009 | By Jared Blank

A pilot for Arkefly shuttling a tour group from Amsterdam to Turkey kicked the entire planeload of passengers off the plane after about a dozen passengers were misbehaving during takeoff.  A group of the hoildaymakers were running around the plane and sitting in jumpseats during taxiing away from the terminal in Amsterdam.  They passengers were [...]

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A Quick Trip Report: Flying with 3 Year Olds

Jun 30th, 2009 | By Jared Blank

From what I can tell from other sites, you airline dorks love your trip reports (I mean that entirely with love) with lots of detail about the flights. So I thought I’d pass along this report from my trip last weekend to St. John’s, Newfoundland, with our 3 year old girls, Sage & Scarlett. [...]

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Delta’s Great International Experiment Is Basically Dead

Jun 25th, 2009 | By Jared Blank

Back in 2007 Delta made a bold decision to expand its international flying signficantly from both Atlanta and JFK.  The theory was that the domestic market was oversaturated, and that there was plenty of opportunity to grow to second (and third-) tier cities and stay out of the way of competition.  757s made it cost [...]

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A Great Time Wasting Airline Site

Jun 24th, 2009 | By Jared Blank

(Full credit for this goes to Mark Ashley at Upgrade Travel Better…thanks for the heads up)
Mark points out a really, really great site for ridiculous airline stories over at the Aviation Herald.  The site appears to report all aviation-related incidents, from mechanical issues (whatever) to passengers acting like idiots (fantastic).  Just go through and pick [...]

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71 Passengers Refuse to Fly After Airline Asks Them to Move Seats to Balance Weight

Jun 23rd, 2009 | By Jared Blank

Must be a full moon or something:  71 British travelers flying back to Newcastle from Mallorca refused to board a Thomas Cook flight after crew asked them to move seats to help balance the aircraft weight.  A cargo door was broken, causing the airline to load all cargo into the front hold of the plane.  [...]

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British Airways May Be Closing Down OpenSkies

Jun 22nd, 2009 | By Jared Blank

The Guardian is reporting that British Airways may shut down OpenSkies, its all-business class subsidiary flying between New York, Amsterdam and Paris.  The airline has reportedly been losing money since launch and last year canceled its expansion plans (including plans for a 5th 757).  To bolster its Paris operations it purchased L’Avion about a year [...]

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JetAmerica Interview Recap: Seriously, We Have No Clue

Jun 18th, 2009 | By Jared Blank

For those of you who still care about train-wreck-waiting-to-happen JetAmerica, The Airline Blog has posted an interview with the airline’s PR guy.  It’s worth a read simply for the cluelessness contained therein.  For example:
(On comparing JetAmerica to Allegiant): “In terms of analogies, you’re comparing apples to oranges. We’re running 737s and they’re running MD80s. Totally [...]

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British Airways: Workers Can Take 4 Weeks Unpaid Leave — Or You Can Work for Free for 4 Weeks

Jun 17th, 2009 | By Jared Blank

British Airways, which is facing the biggest financial crisis of its storied history, has offered its staff between 1 and 4 weeks unpaid leave as a means to cut budget.  The odd part of the story is this:  they have also told staff that they are welcome to work during that unpaid leave period if [...]

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Continental Airlines Sends Unaccompanied 10-Year Old on Wrong Plane…Oops!

Jun 16th, 2009 | By Jared Blank

Continental Airlines is in a bit of hot water after putting an unaccompanied 10-year-old on the wrong flight.  According to the Consumerist, a family paid Continental’s Unaccompanied Minor fee and sent their little girl from Boston to visit Grandma in Cleveland.  Unfortunately, Continental put her on a flight to Newark that happened to be leaving [...]

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Passenger Forced to Strip to Prove She Did Not Have Tattoo on Butt

Jun 15th, 2009 | By Jared Blank

A Canadian woman whose name matched that of a known criminal suffered a bit of humiliation last week when security officials at a Montreal Airport asked her to prove that she was not the fugitive by stripping down and showing that her butt did not have a tattoo on it. After passing through customs, [...]

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