Category Archives for Aircraft.
There are two Boeing 747s that serve as Air Force One. The windows are armored. Its body can stand up to the force of a nuclear blast on the ground. When airborne it is always followed by the Doomsday Plane.
Airlines now require face masks for passengers to fly. But while they’ll make announcements prior to boarding, and enforce the requirement at the gate, the major airlines say they won’t enforce it to the point of diverting a flight is a passenger doesn’t wear a mask on board. They’ll still get a high degree of compliance, and that’s important.
On Tuesday evening a private pilot took this flight over Maryland.
The Blue Angels and Thunderbirds performed a joint flyover, the Navy and Air Force squadrons performed a tribute to health care workers over Philadelphia, Trenton and New York. But this one solo pilot, I think, truly did the country proud.
Airlines are blocking middle seats. Delta has stopped processing upgrades in advance, handling all upgrades at the gate, to manage seat assignments in domestic first class so that passengers aren’t seated beside each other. They’re also blocking seats near flight attendant jump seats, to keep passengers away from flight attendants.
These are all social distancing steps to limit contact between people during travel, both to help stop the spread of the coronavirus and also to give customers confidence to fly. But they won’t do this if it means losing even a single ticket sale.
A 1977 Piper Cherokee Lance N43756 registered to Reid Katan in North Beach, Maryland spelled out “Get Well Soon, Bailey” in the sky.
When Eli Beer, the President of United Hatzalah (a free emergency medical services non-profit based in Jerusalem) sought to return home to Israel after recovering from COVID-19 in Miami, he had the help of Sheldon Adelson, the CEO of Las Vegas Sands Corporation.
Travel restrictions have a very limited benefit for the place imposing them when the virus is already spreading somewhere. U.S. restrictions on travel from China, and from Europe, came after they were too late to matter.
Yet they haven’t come domestically. That may be one of the bigger risks we face as different areas of the country struggle to overcome the spread of the novel coronavirus on different timelines. We’re seeing restrictions on domestic travel in places that are dealing relatively well with the virus (Australia) and those that have suffered greatly (Italy).
IATA, the International Air Transport Association – the international trade association for airlines – says airlines should not have to refund a customer’s money when flights are cancelled.
Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary believes a lot of controversial things and says them. I’ve often been skeptical that he even believes what he says – whenever he’s been out of the news for awhile he’ll talk about making customers of the European low cost carrier pay to use the lavatory, which I guess he believes entrenches the belief in customers’ minds that his airline is cheap.
However in a new interview he made made several claims only a couple of which are clearly self-serving.
Stealing inches out of the lavatory helps airlines cram another row of seats into the plane. The new smaller lavatories some airlines have been using on narrowbody aircraft have been called “the most miserable experience in the world.”
But what if there was a lavatory that was easier to get into and that was even expandable?
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 »
