Tag: Airplanes
Should Airlines go Nascar?
by Bob Ecker | 11.12.09 | 10:29 AM ET
iStockPhoto Bob Ecker has a modest proposal for the airline industry
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Yahoo! BuzzVideo You Must See: ‘Frequent Flyer’
by Michael Yessis | 11.02.09 | 10:32 AM ET
Photo You Must See: Flying Before the Shanghai Sun
by World Hum | 10.07.09 | 11:52 AM ET
REUTERS/Aly Song A passenger jet cruises past the setting sun in Shanghai yesterday.
How Bad is the Air Quality in the Air?
by Michael Yessis | 07.17.09 | 11:42 AM ET
It’s “basically adequate,” writes Scott McCartney. Not very comforting. The airline industry knows that, so last year it put together a panel of experts to recommend changes—changes that, of course, haven’t been implemented.
McCartney investigates further and does a good job explaining what we really need to worry about when it comes to air quality on planes. As one expert told him, “In general the air on an airplane is not too bad, but when things go wrong, they can get really bad. And it happens in a hurry.”
AirTran Presents ‘Internetiquette’
by Eva Holland | 07.14.09 | 4:29 PM ET
As we’ve noted, AirTran has been leading the charge on in-flight Wi-Fi service—and now it’s pioneering in-flight internet protocol too. The airline’s new seat pocket guide, “Internetiquette: A Guide to Keeping Everyone in Line, While They’re Online,” is no dry list of rules, either. Take, for instance, Tip #10 on personal photo galleries:
SFF, or Suitable For Flights: family vacation photos, graduation photos, birthday party photos.
NSFF, or Not Suitable For Flights: the photos from Vegas. You know the ones.
Sometimes humor can be the best way to get a point across. Here’s hoping AirTran’s passengers take note, and that e-card jingles and musical MySpace pages are kept to a minimum on future wired flights.
Study: Long-Distance Travel Triples the Risk of Deep Vein Thrombosis
by Michael Yessis | 07.07.09 | 1:41 PM ET
The dangers have long been suspected. Now, apparently for the first time, there’s research to support the theory. A report in the Annals of Internal Medicine says anyone flying for longer than four hours has increased risk of blood clotting known as deep vein thrombosis. The risk is three times greater than it is for someone not traveling. USA Today and Reuters explain the science.
Experts suggest long-distance travelers lessen the risk by, among other things, drinking water and getting up and walking around the plane every now and then, lest they suffer like Dick Cheney.
Another Reason for Air Rage?
by Eva Holland | 07.01.09 | 2:11 PM ET
Sure, we all love those nifty seat-back entertainment systems—but as Jaunted astutely points out, the personal TV screens come with a major downside: a long-haul flight’s worth of punches to the back of the head.
I’m assuming that when they’re not busy making air travel greener and/or finding a way to remain afloat in this brutal economic climate, the industry’s brightest minds will be working on the problem?
The Perfect Gift for the Airplane House Owner in Your Life
by Michael Yessis | 06.23.09 | 3:27 PM ET
If you know someone who has one of these, here’s a gift idea: Furniture made of old airplane parts.
Airlines Channel La-Z-Boy to Cut Costs
by Alicia Imbody | 06.19.09 | 9:01 AM ET
As more and more premium passengers move to coach, airlines are desperately trying to find ways to reduce costs and update their fleets. The latest experiment: reducing seat pitch (the distance between a point in your seat and the same point in the one behind you) to make room for a dozen or so extra passengers.
American Airlines assured Travel Weekly that the seats should seem roomier in spite of adjustments to cram in even more. A spokesman described the new sliding feature to preserve legroom “like a La-Z-Boy recliner.” Just, you know, wedged in between 159 other recliners.
Rising Fuel Prices, the Paris Air Show and More
by Rob Verger | 06.16.09 | 3:12 PM ET
What’s the fuel bill to fly a 757-200 across the country, from New York to Los Angeles?
About $21,600.
That, at least, was the cost of the fuel burned on a recent transcontinental Delta flight I was on, according to the flight’s captain. Out of 7,500 gallons of fuel on board, we burned about 6,760 gallons.
Clearly, the price of fuel is hugely important for airlines. And rising prices aren’t helping.
The Secret World of Airline Food
by David Farley | 05.26.09 | 2:45 PM ET
A friend of mine recently recalled a story about booking a trans-Atlantic flight for someone else. She was gleeful about it. That’s because she pre-ordered the “kid’s meal” for her adult friend.
I laughed out loud when I heard about it, imagining an airline attendant setting down a colorful “Happy Meal”-like box in front of a grown man, saying, “Here is your children’s meal, sir.” Inside the box, he was likely to find a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a pack of M&Ms and, perhaps, some French fries. Which might actually be better than the glop we’re usually relegated to eating on airplanes.
New Travel Book: ‘The Wall Street Journal Guide to Power Travel’
by Rob Verger | 05.22.09 | 10:09 AM ET
Most of us who fly are curious: we want to know how the system that is transporting us from our homes to a new destination works, and there may be no system more opaque than air travel. For those of us who want to not only understand the system, but also figure out how to get the best deals, I highly recommend Scott McCartney’s latest book, The Wall Street Journal Guide to Power Travel. (You can read my interview with McCartney, the Journal’s Middle Seat columnist, here.)
At first glance, a book advertising “power travel” may seem not to appeal to someone who, in the spirit of World Hum, is probably less interested in “powering” through a travel experience than trying to enjoy every moment of the journey. But we all have a desire to get through the air travel segment as efficiently and cheaply as possible, and I love the way this book explains the complicated world of air travel.
Interview With Scott McCartney: Author of ‘The Wall Street Journal Guide to Power Travel’
by Rob Verger | 05.21.09 | 11:30 AM ET
Scott McCartney, who writes the popular Middle Seat column for The Wall Street Journal, has a new book out with an enticing subtitle: The Wall Street Journal Guide to Power Travel: How to Arrive With Your Dignity, Sanity, and Wallet Intact.
The book, which provides a look inside almost all aspects of the airline industry, is full of great advice on how to navigate air travel today. I’ll have my review of the book in a forthcoming item here, but in the meantime, I caught up with McCartney, who is also a licensed private pilot, via email to ask him a few questions.
The Wi-Fi-in-the-Sky Wars
by Rob Verger | 05.15.09 | 10:46 AM ET
AirTran fired off a powerful volley this week in the competition between airlines to provide wireless internet access on flights. It kicked the service off with a flight on Tuesday, and says that all 136 of its planes will have Wi-Fi by the end of July, making it, as USA Today reports, “the first large U.S. airline to offer wireless Internet access on every flight nationwide.”
As Ben Mutzabaugh put it in another story in the same paper, “AirTran’s promotional flight points up how fast airlines are racing to provide Wi-Fi capability on their planes after experimenting with it for more than a year.”
A Flight From Kathmandu to Tumlingtar
by Rob Verger | 05.06.09 | 11:22 AM ET
It’s been gray and drizzly for a few days now in New York City, and this dreary weather gives me a kind of itchy wanderlust. The airport beckons. It makes me nostalgic for what was perhaps the most adventurous flight and trip I’ve ever taken, now almost a decade ago.
I suspect that many travelers out there have such a trip in mind—the kind that, while it may have been grand and seminal for you at the time, might live on even larger in your mind in the years afterwards.
I was studying abroad in Nepal at the time, and we had reached the point in the semester when we all were required to pursue independent study projects. I had decided to venture out and try to collect legends about something called the Khembalung Beyul in northeastern Nepal, which is a Shangri-la-type “hidden valley” that exists more in story than in actuality.
NPR Broadcasts From ‘The Troubled Skies’
by Rob Verger | 04.24.09 | 10:18 AM ET
There are a few truisms about the airline industry today.
First: It’s no fun to be in the airline business at the moment.
Second: It’s more fun if you’re a passenger, because fares are cheap—although no one is sure how long they’ll stay that way.
For example, JetBlue advertised (via @JetBlue) some $29 one-way fares yesterday, although restrictions included the fact that the low fares were only good for travel on Tuesdays or Wednesdays. (As for the latest development in a la carte fees: Delta just announced it will start charging $50 for a second checked bag on international flights.)
Third: as demand slows and the national system becomes less stressed, things seem to be operating more smoothly.
The Things They Carried—On Planes
by Rob Verger | 04.21.09 | 10:22 AM ET
We carry our things with us when we fly, and sometimes those things are weird. And even if they’re not weird, they might seem strange when juxtaposed with the airplane setting, an incongruity in such a modern environment.
Last week, four baby pythons evidently escaped their container in the cargo hold of a Qantas 737, slithered somewhere in the plane—and disappeared. The plane was later fumigated. I don’t know if the snakes belonged to a passenger or were just being shipped, but it does make me wonder: What weird things do people carry with them aboard?
Interview With Jason Barger: Author of ‘Step Back From the Baggage Claim’
by Rob Verger | 04.16.09 | 4:07 PM ET
I love the transitory airport realm sometimes described as Airworld, a place selected by World Hum as one of the Seven Wonders of the Shrinking Planet.
I like the buzz of people coming and going, I like buying the occasional New Yorker magazine from Hudson News to pass the time, and I even like the sharp whiffs of jet exhaust you get going down the gate ramp.
But what would it be like to spend seven consecutive days in Airworld, flying around the country with no destination but the next city, sleeping in airports and killing time until your next flight leaves?
Desert Solitaire: Inside an ‘Airplane Graveyard’
by Rob Verger | 04.08.09 | 12:54 PM ET
A sign that the airline industry is struggling in the poor economy: airlines are putting more planes into storage. “The number of planes in storage has jumped 29% in the past year to 2,302,” the AP reports.
Both this week’s AP story and a February 2006 New York Times story by Joe Sharkey take readers inside the Evergreen Maintenance Center in Arizona, with vivid descriptions of the rows of planes parked in the desert. Each article uses the word “ghost” or “ghosts” to describe the feeling of the motionless planes.
Further Thoughts on Continental Connect Flight 3407
by Rob Verger | 04.07.09 | 3:16 PM ET
It’s been nearly two months since Continental Connect Flight 3407 crashed in Clarence Center, New York, while on its approach to Buffalo-Niagara International Airport. Over at Ask the Pilot, Patrick Smith analyzes the most recent news, which he describes as “fascinating and disturbing.” While initially ice had been a prime suspect, Smith writes, “Investigators are focused instead on what appears to be an egregious case of pilot error.”
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