News and notes from around the interweb:
- American updates meals on South America routes and Australia/New Zealand routes in business class.
The Australia / New Zealand update is tagged as “Oceania routes: Culinary journeys down under” but includes just “Sweet chile sea bass” and “Kona-crusted beef filet.” I genuinely thought I was missing something with the beef here. I asked ChatGPT for help:
“Kona-crusted” almost certainly refers to Kona, Hawaii, not anything Australian. Kona coffee is a common ingredient in U.S. airline and hotel catering menus, where “Kona crusted beef” usually means a filet rubbed with ground Kona coffee beans (sometimes mixed with brown sugar or spices) before searing. It’s meant to suggest a premium, island-inspired flavor.
There isn’t an Australian or “Down Under” association with Kona. If American Airlines is presenting it as a “Down Under flavor,” that’s just sloppy branding or menu copywriting. They may have intended to gesture vaguely toward “Pacific” or “island” influences and lumped that in with Australia, but geographically and culturally it doesn’t line up.
Indeed, American’s release admits it’s merely “a nod to island flavors” and not, in fact, Australian. On my last two sets of Australia roundtrips in Flagship first class there weren’t even any Australian wines. Sad. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER.
- The Capital One lounge at New York JFK has re-opened after a small back of the house fire last week.
- Cathay Nagoya – Hong Kong passenger arrested for pskirt photos
- 20% off most Singapore Airlines awards in economy and premium economy booked by September 21 for travel November 1 – May 31, 2026 (no changes permitted, and a handful of destinations excluded).
- I’m looking forward to seeing the new JetBlue lounge at JFK, which the airline says is on schedule… but also the new one in Boston:
I actually didn’t realize that the coming Centurion lounge in Boston is going to be part of the same core project.
- Avela was running out of money. They reported raising more but I thought it was odd they did not say how much. What they said is it was ‘the most since their series A’. That suggests a range of $42 – $125 million, though, I think:
- Series A (January 2020): $125 million
- Series B (January 2022): $42 million
- Series A (January 2020): $125 million
- As long as they don’t mess with National too much…
Enterprise evidently considering combining the loyalty programs of it's brands- Enterprise, National, and Alamo (brands would not change, just a combined loyalty program– which seems like a good idea to me.)
floating names:
-JourneyRewards
-Enterprise Mobility Rewards…— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) September 9, 2025
Kona-crusted? What did they do — roll down some back alley on the Big Island?
AU/NZ has incredible lamb… I’d much prefer that…
Strange. But that said, AA’s premium cabin food, while not sophisticated, is actually quite decent and a lot better than the gruel you will be served on UA or the fake premium Alessi accessorized stuff DL serves, long haul.
No way in hell National rental car loyalty scheme will improve with this change. But luckily I don’t care anymore after they nerfed my company’s leisure rate
Kona crusted flavors down under. Maybe that has something to do with the pskirt story. (sarcasm)
@1990 baah!
@Gary – Six bucks for a bottle of Napa wine sounds way too good to be true. How was it?
@cr — Their lamb is… the g.o.a.t. …Bah!
@Christian — Probably about 2-3x better than 2 buck chuck… (though, these days Charles Shaw costs about $3.49).
@lavanderialarry — Shots fired! I still prefer DL’s and UA’s cheeseburger over those awful AA sliders… yikes!
For me the National Car loyalty is just about the Emerald Aisle, it the executive aisle when I was a regular.
The only time I ever rented enterprise was back when i was under 25 and they were the ones who would rent cars to me.
Using free days on expensive one-way rentals is the best use of free days. I hope that doesn’t change, though as others noted, the Emerald/Executive aisles are the REAL values for National.
@Christian – genuinely horrible, my wife actually shivered in disgust
Should just call their meals to Australia, Thunder Down Under, hear me out, Aussy inspired meals like from outback steakhouse (some shrimp on the barbie anyone?) served by former Thunder Down Under performers in full dress, with a rainforest cafe thunder every 20 minutes during service.
Mirror this with Medieval Times style dining on LHR flights including a special tv performance of a joust tournament and the pilot comes out dressed up like the king.
HND flights get Kabuki Theater or Pokemon/Nintendo with Japanese inspired meals, MAD and BCN (and parts of Latin America) Tapas and Bullfights.
Other partner hubs could carry this style of service.
Specific non partner hubs may get lighter service of theme meals and entertainment.
@PM — I’m all for this. Thank you.
@ PM
Very inspirational !… M.A.G.A. ( Make Airlines ‘Golden’ Again 1 )…..
I’d be laughing so hard, I won’t have time to cry about the dismal service … lol
And, of course, a reprisal of the pinnacle of inflight service, the one and only, Braniff “Air Strip” !