Quick travel tip for you: Do not harass your flight attendant when you go to Dubai. A Russian doctor will be deported from Dubai after he was found guilty of molesting an Azerbaijani flight attendant on a trip from Moscow to Dubai. He reportedly grabbed the woman, then offered to pay her to have sex [...]
Read the Rest of the Story: Doctor Deported from Dubai for Molesting StewardessYou’re not the only one who has sat through long delays flying into Chicago: The Chicago Bears sat and waited for 5 hours in San Diego when their United Airlines charter faced a mechanical problem. After a while a new plane was flown down from LAX. See, it’s not just you who can’t get back [...]
Read the Rest of the Story: Chicago Bears Delayed 5 Hours in San DiegoGood news if you’re a United flyer and you’ve had enough of filthy planes: The airline said that it’s going to use part of its capital improvement budget to "deep clean" their aircraft more frequently. They can spin that how they want, but that must mean their planes get extremely dirty. And that means you’ve [...]
Read the Rest of the Story: United: We’re Going to Clean Our PlanesTwo 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 [...]
I forgot to mention this yesterday, but United Airlines has announced that it will begin introducing lie-flat seats in their international business class cabins beginning this fall. The seats will be available on its 747s, 767s, and 777s (though it will take 2 1/2 years to fully outfit the fleet). These will be the best [...]
Read the Rest of the Story: United Introduces Flat Seats in International Business ClassA man died yesterday hiding in the wheel well of a United flight from Taiwan to San Francisco, the 59th person to die attempting this in the past 50 years or so. Officials say the man died either from asphyxiation (not much oxygen at 37,000 feet) or froze to death (-40 below). He was wearing [...]
Read the Rest of the Story: Stowaway in Airplane Wheel DiesThe OTR got a nice mention in the LA Times over the weekend as I chatted about Farecast…
Speaking of which, the Wall St. Journal talks up a new website called Yapta.com that will alert you to when a fare you’ve purchased has dropped. The article points out that several airlines (including JetBlue, United, Alaska and [...]
I’m guessing most of you have seen this already, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t note that Virgin America has been approved for service. Look for a July/August launch of flights between San Francisco and New York.
More service is always great news for travelers, and the coach cabin of Virgin looks quite nice, with [...]
Americans apparently prefer dealing with the IRS than with airlines, according to a study put out by the University of Michigan (my alma mater). The UM’s American Customer Satisfaction Index found that airlines scored 2 points lower than the IRS in terms of customer satisfaction (hotels only scored a couple of points better than the [...]
Read the Rest of the Story: Consumers Prefer IRS to AirlinesNot sure why we haven’t heard much about this:
Two Cuban soldiers were arrested on Thursday after they attempted to hijack an airliner in Havana and fly it to the United States. The two soldiers (who had actually deserted) took over a city bus and forced it to the airport, where they boarded a Cubana flight [...]
