Monthly Archives for December 2019.
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
Currently flights are available from New York and Chicago to Paris, Rome, and Madrid starting at just $268 roundtrip. These were flagged by NotiFlyer and appear to be available on American Airlines and joint venture partners British Airways, Iberia, and Finnair with some matching from Lufthansa.
Bek Air flight Z9-2100 from Almaty to Astana, a domestic flight within Kazakhstan operated by a Fokker 100 with reports alternately of 93 and 95 passengers on board along with 5 crew, crashed shortly after takeoff. It was unable to climb, hit the ground, and broke through a concrete wall before hitting a building. The Fokker jet broke into multiple pieces.
Twelve people are reported to have perished including the captain of the flight. Sixty six people suffered critical injuries (22 of which are ‘extremely critical’). These numbers may worsen.
Former conservative fourth circuit federal appeals court judge Michael Luttig, who resigned from the bench in 2006 to become Boeing’s general counsel, is being retired effective the end of the year.
United Express flight 3705 from Newark to Kansas City arrived 32 minutes early on Christmas Day. But that wasn’t the most remarkable thing about the flight. Republic Airways captain Joseph Tar Schmidt serenaded passengers on the flight prior to departure.
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
In the fall an Airbus A320 got stuck under a bridge in Harbin, China. The quick thinking truck driver carrying the plane managed to break it free by deflating his tires.
Now images of a plane getting stuck in Durgapur, West Bengal, India are going viral and deflating the tires wasn’t enough. Officials were called in and they “had to get rid of the tyres” in order to free the plane and get the truck moving again. It had to be “pushed out with the help of another truck.”
Two of the most innovative companies in the world are Google and Amazon. They’re impressive in similar ways. They’ve built capabilities, scaled them, and used their new internal capacity to compete aggressively in adjacent industries. No one can touch what Google has done in artificial intelligence at scale. They built and effectively managed large scale data storage, and branched out to manage web services for other companies (Google Cloud). They used the data storage and search capability to offer e-mail, which they scan to learn tremendous amounts about their customers. When I receive an email with travel plans, Google knows where I’m going. They know where I have dinner reservations, too, and tell me when I should to make it to a restaurant on time. They’re embedded in my phone through its operating system, and…
I used to get in taxis all the time in New York. But before the driver would let me in he’d (and it was always a he) roll down the window and ask where I was going. He didn’t want a ride in the opposite direction of where he wanted to go, and he certainly didn’t want to drive into an ‘undesirable’ (minority) neighborhood. That’s illegal, but the practice was commonplace.
Uber and other rideshare companies changed all that. You enter where you’re going in an app, the driver accepts the ride, but doesn’t learn the destination until you’re in the car and on the way – and they can be penalized for cancelling rides.
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
