Jun 15th, 2013 at 2:00PM: Chris Owen
Pretend you had never been a passenger on one of today's commercial airlines, but had the need to choose one. How would you do that? Look for airlines with a good safety record? One that is rated highly on service, a low cost leader or some other criteria that is important to you? A new, free airline rating service promises to cover all that and more.
Launched this week, ...Click on a label to read posts from that part of the world.
airlines posts
New Airline Ratings Resource: It's All About You, Eventually
Jun 15th, 2013 at 2:00PM: Chris Owen
Pretend you had never been a passenger on one of today's commercial airlines, but had the need to choose one. How would you do that? Look for airlines with a good safety record? One that is rated highly on service, a low cost leader or some other criteria that is important to you? A new, free airline rating service promises to cover all that and more.
Launched this week, ...American's New Boarding Process Could Probably Maybe Not Speed Up Boarding
May 20th, 2013 at 9:00AM: Fly For Fun, Flickr
Airlines are constantly experimenting with new, more efficient ways to board airplanes. A faster turnaround time on the ground means more on-time flights, which translates to better revenue for the carrier. So anything that they can do to speed up the process is in their best interest. Oh – and if it makes the process easier for the passengers then that's a decent side ...Airlines Use Loopholes To Avoid Paying For Damaged Bags
May 14th, 2013 at 11:00AM: If an airline damages a piece of your luggage, surely they will pay to repair or replace it, right? Don't be so sure. I've been very lucky over the years in checking bags but my luck ran out on a flight to Chicago from San Francisco over the weekend, when I found out that there are plenty of loopholes that airlines use to avoid paying for damaged luggage.
I prefer to travel light and bring my ...Flying With Rude Passengers: Survey Asks What Would You Do
May 13th, 2013 at 4:00PM: Say you're on a plane, sitting in a middle seat, and the rude passengers on both sides of you are in command of the arm wrests. Do you say something? Ask a flight attendant to help? Say nothing and live with it? Or are you just not sure? If you are like a lot of people, you say nothing according to a fifth annual nationwide survey that asked Americans how they would handle uncomfortable but common ...Airline Hopes To Avoid Volcanic Ash Clouds With New Technology
May 10th, 2013 at 4:00PM: Volcanic ash is something commercial airliners want nothing to do with. When Alaska's Cleveland volcano erupted not long ago, shooting low levels of ash into the atmosphere, many airlines were concerned. Another blast could send ash higher, directly into their flight path between Asia and North America, causing major flight schedule disruptions. But while most airlines watch and wait, one is ...Alaska Volcano Erupts, Air Travel Disruption Possible
May 6th, 2013 at 4:00PM: It's been nearly two years since scientists at the Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO) warned that Alaska's Cleveland volcano could erupt at any time, issuing a code yellow eruption advisory. Saturday, those scientists were proven more than right.
"We haven't seen a phase like this where we've had multiple explosions," Rick Wessels, a geophysicist at the US Geological Survey's Alaska Volcano ...Galley Gossip: 10 Ways To Handle A Tight Connection
May 3rd, 2013 at 11:00AM: 1. Book wisely. If you need to be somewhere really important, it's probably not a good idea to book your flights with less than an hour between them. Even an hour is pushing it. An hour and a half is good. Two hours, even better. Whatever you do, don't take the last flight out! Delays happen. So do cancelations.
2. Pay the extra fee. If you're the anxious type and travel is stressful, pay the ...Frontier Airlines To Charge More, Reward Less
May 2nd, 2013 at 2:00PM: It came across as a simple tweet of information by Airfarewatchdog: "Frontier charging for carry-on bags if fare not bought on their site. Calls it an 'enhancement.'" The airfare experts at the site were noting a new policy from Frontier Airlines that goes into effect this summer.
"Frontier continues to make it easier for customers flying with Frontier to pay only for the services they use, ...Flight Attendant Humiliates Breast-Pumping Mom
Apr 30th, 2013 at 5:30PM: Dawnella Brahos is claiming a flight attendant publicly humiliated her by not letting her use a breast pump aboard an American Airlines flight earlier this month. According to the mother, she was flying between Minneapolis and Chicago when the flight attendant denied usage, and the attendant even went so far as to claim Brahos was "making up" the fact that she had used the pump on previous legs of ...How To Deal With The Ridiculous New Airline Change Fees
Apr 27th, 2013 at 10:00AM: The big news in the travel industry this week was that United and US Airways raised the cost of changing tickets from $150 to $200. This means that if you need to change your ticket for any reason prior to departure, whether you got stuck in traffic on the way to the airport or your pet goldfish died, you're going to have to pay a little bit more.
Gouging? Probably. Expected? Definitely. As ...Got A Complaint About Your Airline? A Photo Will Do Nicely
Apr 26th, 2013 at 3:00PM:
This one caught our attention anyway.
[Photo credit - reddit user doomguts]
...Tarmac Rule Suspension Idea Heralds Really Long Flight Delays
Apr 25th, 2013 at 4:00PM:
Sequester cuts have had already had an impact on travel, grounding the Navy's Blue Angels at air shows, turning Houston's George Bush Intercontinental into a third world-like airport and delaying the opening of national parks. This week, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) began furloughs for some of its 47,000 agency employees, including 15,000 air traffic controllers. Faced with flight ...Searching, Thinking, Speaking Travel Apps No Match For Human Brain, Maybe
Apr 23rd, 2013 at 5:00PM: Under the premise that searching for a flight online is a time-consuming and annoying task, travel buyers have been presented with a number of solutions. As new technology moves from the lab to the street, we see it being applied in helpful ways that do indeed make life easier and save us time.
Searching for flights online, buyers commonly visit multiple websites, see something they like on ...Flight Turbulence: Just How Dangerous Is It Anyway?
Apr 12th, 2013 at 4:00PM: The jury is still out on a recent study that says a result of climate change could take fliers on a bumpy ride. Scientists think passengers on transatlantic vectors could experience more unexpected ups and downs, the leading cause of in-flight injury, but agree that more study is needed. But just how dangerous is flight turbulence anyway?
Unexpected turbulence, called "clear air turbulence," ...F-18 Fighter Pilot Takes Dreamliner For A Spin [VIDEO]
Apr 8th, 2013 at 1:30PM: Piloted by an F-18 fighter pilot, we see just what the Boeing Dreamliner can do when put to the test. Stretching the aircraft and pushing it to the limit of its ability, the pilot guides the 787 to climb and soar at a degree and rate that passengers (hopefully) will never experience.
Boeing has been working to get the 787 Dreamliner back in the sky after two battery-fire incidents in ...
Tiny Samoa Air First To Charge Passengers Based On Weight
Apr 3rd, 2013 at 8:00AM: Considering the number of fake travel stories we posted in celebration of April Fool's Day on Monday, we can understand why you might be skeptical of the following post. But it has actually been confirmed by a number of news outlets across the globe, including the BBC. Still, considering the timing, I was double and triple checking the news.
Samoa Air has announced that it will now start ...Airline Service, As Different As Night And Day, Literally
Mar 24th, 2013 at 4:00PM:
Purely from an airline passenger's point of view, I've always thought that the international flight crew on any given airline was better than their domestic counterparts. If for no other reason, settling in for a long-haul flight, those international veterans have more time to take care of business. Short domestic flights kept flight crews busy and important safety-related duties take ...United Rolls Out Wi-Fi On Overseas Flights
Mar 18th, 2013 at 4:00PM:
It used to be that one of the few places you couldn't get a Wi-Fi signal was at 30,000 feet, but soon there will be no excuse for being out of touch (or not getting work done) as airlines implement a dramatic expansion of onboard Wi-Fi services.
More than half of the planes flown by U.S. carriers currently offer Wi-Fi onboard, but United and other airlines are planning to up the ante by ...Everything You Need To Know About Flying With An Infant Turning 2
Mar 13th, 2013 at 11:00AM:
After flying with an infant to over a dozen countries and on nearly 50 flights in her 20 months, I figured I pretty much have baby travel down to a science, as much as you can call it "science" when dealing with a person who is often unpredictable and doesn't respond to reason. While each flight gets more challenging, I'm relishing this travel time before she has opinions on where to go and ...Save With Frequent Flier Miles Using The Right Tools, Attitude
Mar 4th, 2013 at 1:00PM: Accumulating frequent flier miles seems to be the easy part of the deal. We fly. We get miles. They add up. However, when we look a bit closer we find there are rules, and that all miles are not equal. Once we get tens of thousands of miles on a given airline or alliance, however, the focus shifts to using them. And that's when life as a frequent flier can get difficult.
A good first step is to ...
