News and notes from around the interweb:
- A lavatory door came off inside Cathay Pacific flight 840 from Hong Kong to New York JFK minutes after takeoff, and remained off for the duration of the flight. (HT: @crucker)
- Texas government and local government tourist bureaus will subsidize Michelin ratings for Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin, Houston and San Antonio.
- Visa now gets reservation set-asides through OpenTable
The OpenTable & Visa Dining Collection launches today in Los Angeles and Chicago. Primetime reservations at select restaurants in these cities will be exclusively available to OpenTable diners who book with eligible Visa cards. The Collection, which includes restaurants from MICHELIN-starred venues to local favorites and beloved culinary destinations, will grow to more than 500 restaurants across 34 North American cities1 by 2025. Visa Infinite® cards, issued in the U.S. and Mexico, and Visa Infinite Privilege® cards, issued in Canada, are eligible at launch, with plans to offer the benefit to more Visa cardholders in the future.
- New maintenance procedure: Stuck bracket? “Give it that Hawk Tuah. And spit on that thang!”
- Booking a hotel room for the leader of Hamas.
Israeli comedian @OrelTsabari pranks Qatari luxury hotel, saying he wants to book a room for H×mas leader Yahya Sinwar, but they must keep it secret so Palestinians won't get angry. Wait for the reaction when he says he's from the Mossad pic.twitter.com/dIuKis2NWu
— Dr. Eli David (@DrEliDavid) July 15, 2024
- Alaska Airlines applies to combine route authorities with Hawaiian Airlines into the surviving company post-merger
Alaska will be cold air conditioned , and will serve hot drinks ; whereas and Hawaiian will be warm , humid and muggy , and will serve cold drinks .
I guess the lavatory doors must of come loose due to the screws holding the doors in place obviously must of loosened so much due to so much jolting maybe during take off or could of been due to turbulence in the air. No doubt they will have to be fixed when they land at the destined destination
I hope Hawaiian starts to use widebodies from LAX-NYC. Nothing says island love like competing on trans continental business.
I so agree with Joseph on Hawaiian serving transcon routes and compete with proper aircraft with better premium seats. It will be dream to see HA 787 on JFK-LAX/SFO/SEA routes…..
Gary, is the Open table visa infinite access restricted to personal cards? It said my Venture X Business card wasn’t eligible.
We flew Seattle-Maui on a Hawaiian A330. Economy seating was 2-4-2. It was really nice not to have a third person with us, and, for everyone, no one was more than one “excuse me” from the aisle. With Alaska being one of those “Proudly All Boeing” airlines, I wonder what will happen to these planes. And I certainly hope this doesn’t result in Southwest having an inter-island monopoly.
Nothing nefarious here. Pay-to-play is standard for getting a Michelin Guide for an area (not for being listed in one). Somebody has to pay for it. That’s why a gastronomic backwater like Atlanta has one, while far more deserving cities go without.
The only surprise here is that it has taken the local Texas travel/tourist bureaus so long to get together on this. Probably some intercity rivalry slowed things down.
Airlines seem to be having trouble keeping doors in place these days. Must be a maintenance issue.