Jul 28 2016

Following on my last report, flying all 3 big gulf carriers in first class on their Airbus A380s in a single trip where I visited Bangkok and finally got to see the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, I redeemed miles for another fairly over-the-top adventure.

This trip involved using American Airlines miles for Etihad’s First Apartment roundtrip, Hyatt Gold Passport points for 5 nights at the Park Hyatt Hadahaa Maldives, and 117,000 Starwood points for 3 nights at Al Maha Desert Resort & Spa. I also had the chance to fly business class on China Eastern and flydubai.

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Jul 28 2016

United has operated a hub at Washington Dulles for 30 years. It began as a primarily domestic operation. They wouldn’t introduce their first international flight from DC for four years. However the airport grew into United’s primary transatlantic gateway.

It was also United’s primary connecting city up and down the East Coast and for Northeast and Mid-Atlantic traffic which didn’t make sense to route through Chicago.

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Jul 28 2016

American has sold upgrades at check-in to non-elites when they expected all elites requesting upgrades to receive them and they’d still have first class seats left. This has been known as “Load Factor Based Upgrades” (LFBUs).

As part of American’s plan to extract incremental revenue from existing passengers, they’re changing their approach somewhat to selling first class upgrades to non-elite frequent flyers.

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Jul 28 2016

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.

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Jul 27 2016

Boeing provided a financial update for the 747 in an SEC form 10-Q filing today.

They noted that demand for both the passenger plane and freighter has been less than they’ve projected. Boeing is going to keep production levels at just one aircraft every other month. They have completed, unsold aircraft in inventory and their schedule anticipates producing 32 aircraft through 2019 that they do not yet have plans to deliver.

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Jul 27 2016

You cannot bring liquids more than 100 milliliters (3.4 ounces) each, and not more of those than will fit in a one quart clear plastic ziploc bag (your “freedom baggie”).

But what about freezing that bottle of water before going through the checkpoint — then it’s a solid, and not a liquid. Is that ok? Ask TSA.

It turns out the TSA is perfectly fine with carrying utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham’s head through their checkpoints.

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Jul 27 2016

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.

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Jul 27 2016

Model Donald Trump’s negotiating tactics. He took on the role of meeting planner to negotiate with a hotel where his campaign was holding an event.

Instead of dealing directly with the hotel’s event staff, he made his demands for price reduction to the assembled crowd of supporters.

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Jul 27 2016

Delta’s and American’s shares are down about 10% year-over-year. United is down about 15%. JetBlue has fallen even more than United. Stocks are lower even as airlines continue to make record profits. And it’s actually easy to understand why that is.

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Jul 27 2016

Donald Trump flies mostly in his private Boeing 757 (which the campaign rents from the candidate). For short hops to small cities he also has a Cessna that required some administrative sleight of hand to keep legal.

His running mate, Governor Mike Pence of Indiana, will be flying a charted Eastern Airlines Boeing 737-700 registration N278EA that only days earlier displayed a Star Trek livery.

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