Another boring flight to the East Coast suddenly perked up when I looked up from my iPhone on Monday's Northwest flight to Baltimore and saw Michael Phelps standing in front of me. Apparently, after everyone had boarded the plane the Olympic swimmer was snuck on to prevent any swooners from interfering.

Sporting a Baltimore Ravens jersey and Tigers baseball cap, Phelps quickly darted over to seat 2D, the seat right in front of me and hunkered into the corner -- only myself, my intern and the guys sitting behind me seemed to notice.

Naturally, being the kind, respectful passenger that I am, I kept to myself and didn't raise a fuss. I only spent, oh, about 70% of the flight peering through the seat crack to see if Phelps was smashing atoms with his bare hands or solving the world's economic woes with an abacus.

On pushback, Phelps immediately put away his Blackberry and switched gears to this month's Esquire for about 60 seconds before falling fast asleep. Throughout the flight he only moved a few times to close the window shades before landing in Maryland. Once phones were allowed again he immediately jumped on the line to discuss the six flat panel TVs that were being installed in his place then bolted out the front door on arrival -- before I could get a proper photo.

I suppose as a celebrity you try to keep a low profile when on the road, or else nutjobs like Gadling Bloggers make a big ruckus and try to take your picture. Really I was most surprised to just see him on any old Northwest flight after watching him on television last month -- or as our friend and contributor Matthew Firestone put it:

"I find it hard to believe that Michael Phelps flies in an airplane - I heard he just dives into the open sea and follows oceanic currents around the globe."

Farewell, Michael Phelps. Sorry for taking your picture on the plane, but Gadlingers wouldn't have believed it was you if I didn't have evidence.

Jumbo jets, like Boeing's classic 747, are a bit like that Buick your grandpa used to drive. They are sizable enough that you don't have to concern yourself too much with what is going on outside. What's a little turbulence to such a massive beast? What's a six hour flight when you can stand up and actually walk around? (I was a little kid last time I rode in "the boat," but you get the analogy).

High fuel prices have been grounding more and more of these large aircraft. And those who fly frequently are none to happy about it. Aside from a smoother ride, larger aircraft offer more seating options, more lavatories and more overhead space. If you are flying from New York to L.A. or Atlanta to Seattle, a little extra room can make a big difference.

Among major carriers, American and Delta still offer the most jumbo jet flights at more than 50 per day. However, wide-bodied planes are nowhere to be found on Northwest's and Continental's domestic routes. According to the industry, large aircraft will account for less that 1% of air traffic by the end of this year.

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After the issue with the wife of Joel Osteen, here comes another anger management case from the pressurized cabin.

A veteran character actor, E.D. Nixon Jr., was arrested for allegedly assaulting a flight attendant and a police officer at Memphis International Airport on Tuesday.

The 80-year-old actor, the son of a leading organizer in the Montgomery bus boycotts, is accused of striking a flight attendant on a Northwest Airlines plane and then hitting an officer.

Nixon was taken to the local hospital for treatment of high blood pressure and elevated blood sugar before being transported to jail in Memphis.

(He is being held on $1,000 bond, in case anyone is interested in bailing him out.)

Continental just issued a press release saying that they're entering a cooperative agreement with United Airlines, saying the two airlines will "cooperate extensively, linking their networks and services worldwide to the benefit of customers, and creating revenue opportunities and cost savings and other efficiencies." This means that Continental will also join United in the Star Alliance.

For those of you who follow airline alliances, this means that CO will be dropping Skyteam, whose partners include Delta, KLM and Northwest, and picking up partners such as Lufthansa and US Airways.

Basically, Continental Onepass members won't be able to accrue or spend miles on Skyteam anymore (similarly, partner airlines can't spend miles on CO), but they can on Star.

It does not, however, mean that the airlines are merging -- only that they'll be collaborating on many routes, codeshares and other logistics.

In the current airline industry, this change was almost inevitable. Carriers are looking at ways to collaborate on operations and cut costs, just like Northwest and Delta announced earlier this year. With the two airlines' combined routes and networks, a stronger entity will now exist that can better compete with the soon to be uber Delta Airlines.

No word yet on when exactly the alliance changes will take place and a schedule for the official divorce from Skyteam airlines. But if you were thinking about booking a ticket with your Skyteam miles on CO, now might be a good time to do it.

Ah, there's nothing like a little classist profiling to get rival unions a little fired up.

Remember that Northwest - Delta merger that was announced earlier this year? Wondering why you haven't heard much news from it lately? Well, the brass has got their noses to the grindstone working hard to get congress to approve of the merger before the new administration moves in. And the pilots, well, they're still arguing too.

You might recall that the two carriers earlier put the merger on hold because the pilots couldn't agree on seniority issues. In the end, they decided to merge anyway and let the pilots figure it out during the process.

As Politico most-gently points out though, there are deep rooted difference between the pilots and the unions. Pete Janhunen of the Air Line Pilots Association put it like this: "When you work with Delta guys, you tend to think of a Fortune 500 company... Northwest is a little more upper-Midwest, a little more working-class and less formal."

Mind you, this isn't the only thing that sets the unions apart. But it's one more barrier that the unions have to overcome before they can handshake on their integration.

I for one, work with a Northwest pilot right now who is the most pleasant, friendly person I have ever met. Perhaps Politico was painting with a bit of a wide brush.

[Interesting sidenote: check out the comment on the Flickr photo from one of our favorite regular Gadling contributors. Thanks for the photo!]

Perhaps as a result of some of the recent increased marketing (read: fare sales) lately or perhaps because of the pending mergers and passengers switching carriers, several airlines have been pitching to frequent fliers in an attempt to retain their business. I posted earlier on double miles promotions on Delta and American, two classic examples of the pitches.

Northwest just launched a similar promotion: now, any elite member who purchases and travels on a flight before August 31 is eligible for a 50% bonus on their earned miles. Real quick, since I know you guys hate numbers, you'll thus now earn the following miles for a sample Detroit - Los Angeles leg:

Silver Elite: 1980 base miles + 990 Silver Elite miles + 990 bonus miles = 3960 miles
Gold Elite: 1980 base miles + 1980 Gold Elite miles + 990 bonus miles = 4950 miles
Platinum Elite = 1980 base miles + 2475 Platinum Elite miles + 990 bonus miles = 5445 miles.

So on a roundtrip you could be earning as much as 11,000 miles, or about 2/5 of a free domestic ticket. Neat huh? Of course you have to be an elite member to reap any of these benefits, which means you have to fly at least 25k miles a year anyway. So the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Sound like any tax plans you've seen recently?

Check out Northwest's promo page if you want to participate.

How much can an airline save on fuel costs just flying a little slower?

JetBlue reckons that by adding two minutes to each of its flights, it saves $13.6 million a year. Southwest is now extending most flights from 1 to 3 minutes, and says it will save more than $40 million. Northwest says it saved about $530 by flying 532 mph instead of 542 mph on one recent Paris-Minneapolis flight (that added eight minutes to the journey).

The Associated Press mentions these figures in a piece about how some carriers are choosing to go it a little slower in this era of insane fuel costs. With jet fuel prices up some 73 percent, to $3.54 a gallon, adding a few extra minutes to normal flight schedules is just one of the ways airlines are coping, along with levying higher fuel surcharges and, of course, increasing fare prices.

United is looking at special software to help pilots choose better routes and speeds and says the software could save the company $20 million a year.

Not all airlines say they have adopted a slowdown approach in order to save on fuel costs. American Airlines, for instance, says it wants to maintain the integrity of its schedules, whatever that means.

It doesn't seem that customers mind too much. Many are surprised to find out that their flight was a tad longer, and they usually agree that a few minutes is not really that big of a deal. Besides, these slight increases in flight times are built into the advertised schedule, along with taxi time and the like, so we probably wouldn't know it anyway.

Most passengers I've talked to in the Northwest and Delta communities have been pretty gloomy about the merger of the two airlines. Many see it as an excuse to cut out the best aspects of either airline and merge all of the cost-saving and sloppy parts together, from the old aircraft to frequent flier benefits to business lounges in the airport.

What's done is done however, and we now need to start looking forward to a new global airline with new marketing, strategies and attitudes towards customer service. With that in mind, Gadling has put together the The top five reasons to be happy about the Delta and Northwest Merger

1. More routes: With the combined volume or routes between the two airlines it should be easier to get from point A to point B on one airline, check your luggage straight through and deal with one customer service line.
2. Better award availability: For those of us who do invest in frequent flier mile programs, it will also be easier to cash in our miles on the larger volume of available routes -- without changing carriers.
   
3. In-flight entertainment: Many of Delta's domestic aircraft are outfitted with in-seat LCD screens. For those of you without a laptop or book on the plane, this can be a lifesaver for longer flights. Hopefully they'll start upgrading the NW fleet as well.
4. Reciprocal upgrades: It used to be that elite members from one carrier carrier didn't get upgrades into first class on the other. With all aircraft now flying under the same banner, NW passengers can expect upgrades out of Cincinnati and Atlanta while DL passengers can get the same out of Memphis, Detroit or Minneapolis.
5. Northwest flight attendants will now get to wear nifty red hats!

Don't get me wrong either -- there's plenty to complain about in the merger, especially as we all consider the future of our miles and investments in each airline. These pros are but a silver lining as the merger clouds begin to form. Get ready for a storm.

The news, so to speak, is inevitable, as last night's news and this morning's press conference are confirming: Delta and Northwest Airlines are to merge. Together they will form the world's largest airline capable of moving more passengers to more corners of the globe in fewer steps -- so they say.

What does this mean for the current passenger of each respective airline? As far as routes and operations, not much will immediately change. It will take 6-8 months to iron out the details of the operation, during which the airlines will continue to operate independently. Afterwards, corporate says they'll be keeping all of the hubs between the two cities, keeping all of the small local routes and maintaining all of the operations that you now hold dear.

Whether or not that is true is another question -- the two airlines would have seven hubs in North America with six east of the Mississippi and five in a pretty straight line between Atlanta and Minneapolis. That doesn't seem like a great way to geographically approach a hub and spoke system.

Regardless, all routes and schedules are guaranteed, so if you have or want to book a ticket now, go ahead -- you're in no danger of losing it. Indeed there are only a few overlapping routes between the two airlines, so it's pretty unlikely that they'll mess with any of your flights; if they do, they'll rebook you on Delta and you'll be fine.

For now, both carriers claim that their mileage programs and miles will remain in tact. Multiple press releases, corporate words and their new special website repeat this and I believe this true to the point that your miles won't be erased. What they could do, however, is screw with the quality of the miles -- after all, each mileage program is set up with different milestones and redemption levels -- one is going to have to adopt the other's policy.

Naturally, the airlines want you to believe that Your Favorite Hub and Your Special Miles are going to be safe in the merger. If you cash in your miles that's money out of the bank and if you lose faith in your hub your business is going to go elsewhere. So don't plan on them telling you anything that's really going to happen any time soon.

If you want to play it safe, I would use some of those miles right now and start shopping around for tickets. It's not too difficult to redeposit your miles if you decide you want to keep them and in the mean time they're in a safe place (invested in your vacation). And if you really really don't know what to do with your miles, leave a comment below and I'll tell you how to get rid of them. Trust me, you don't want to waste your 100k miles on 70 years of Newsweek subscriptions yet.

According to a report by CNN tonight, Delta has announced it's long rumored merger with Northwest has been approved by both airlines. This merger was supposed to happen months ago, but the airlines were holding out on an announcement until the pilot groups at each company could come to a seniority agreement. The pilots, both represented by the Air Line Pilots Association, were unable to negotiate a mutually agreeable seniority list. The airlines were trying to avoid the acrimonious situation that currently exists between the USAirways and former America West pilots that is threatening the combined airline.

The Delta name and Atlanta headquarters will be kept, and Delta will become the world's largest airline, a position held previously by American Airlines. Delta is hoping that a quick resolution to their pilot contract, which would eventually apply to both pilot groups, might make the merger a success.

Northwest Airlines hold a 'golden share' in Continental Airlines which has prevented Continental from seeking their own merger. Any deal involving Northwest would allow Continental to be freed from any veto power that Northwest has. Look for a possible Continental and United announcement shortly.

Update: Delta and Northwest have already launched a site with details of their plan for world domination.