Category Archives for Aircraft.
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.
United has been moving towards a premium-heavy strategy. The offer more international business class seats than peers using similar aircraft, and they’ve invested in really nice international business class lounges. Their Polaris business class seat allows them to do this because it gives them a fully flat product with direct aisle access without taking up more space in the cabin than their old six-abreast seats. It’s a “good enough” seat that isn’t quite as nice as American’s B/E Aerospace Super Diamond or Delta’s new Suites, but that doesn’t require actively avoiding flying business class on United. United has announced a doubling down on the premium heavy approach adding even more business class seats to a subfleet of 767-300s, as well as adding first class seats to Airbus A319 and A320s where they’ve had fewer seats…
Over the last couple of years American Airlines has been aggressively adding seat power and satellite internet to their fleet. They’ve made a strategic decision not to offer seat back video on demand the way that Delta does. Since customers need to use their own devices for entertainment, they need to power those devices.
And with the mainline fleet well underway for these modifications, the airline is now in the process of add seat power to two-cabin regional jets — Embraer ERJ-175s, Bombardier CR7s and CR9s.
News and notes from around the interweb: Looks like all your can jet private flight app company JetSmarter is imploding. In the beginning they offered amazing deals (and burned tremendous cash). I only ever used them when they gave free trial memberships to customers with elite status and big mileage balances. The LAX Tom Bradley Terminal finally has PreCheck Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, on flying coach: When speaking to the Royal Aircraft Association back in 2002, Prince Philip commented on the British royal family’s air travel conditions. “If you travel as much as we do, you appreciate the improvements in aircraft design of less noise and more comfort,” he said, “provided you don’t travel in something called economy class, which sounds ghastly.” Pan Am 103: Robert Mueller’s 30 year search for justice bet you…
Air Zimbabwe is shutting down for several days because they have no aircraft suitable to operate.
On December 30 their Boeing 737-200 went out of service. It reportedly needs 45 days of maintenance, though may not return to the fleet. Their only other aircraft, a Boeing 767-200, needs maintenance that’s expected to take several days.
I just wrote about $675 roundtrip from Vietnam to the US in Cathay Pacific business class. Even if you just book a one way award ticket to Asia and use this for your flight back to the U.S. it’s an amazing steal.
However there are amazing (even better!) first class fares, too.
American Airlines has 100 A321 ‘neo’ or ‘new engine option’ planes on order (22 of these deliveries have been deferred). Back in August we learned that American would take delivery of its first neo in January. It would be a new ‘dense’ configuration with more seats than the airline has ever put into an A321 before. And that it would become the template for going back and adding seats to existing Airbus A321s as well.
This new Airbus A321neo aircraft is going to be loaded into American’s schedule overnight tonight and the first flights will be bookable starting Sunday.
Norwegian Air Shuttle flight DY1933 from Dubai to Oslo was flying over Shiraz, Iran at 32,000 feet on Friday when the crew received indication of low oil pressure on the number one engine, shut down the engine and burned off fuel, and diverted to Shiraz.
Norwegian sent a replacement Boeing 737-800 from Oslo to Shiraz to pick up passengers. Mechanics were also flown to Shiraz to deal with the grounded 737 MAX. However sanctions on Iran complicate the airline’s ability to source parts for the aircraft.
Six months ago I reported that American Airlines was in the market for used Airbus A319s.
There was a rumor at the time that American would pick up these narrowbody aircraft from Frontier Airlines but then time passed and nothing happened. Now it seems that American Airlines is receiving its first ex-Frontier A319, registration N922FR.
At the end of June American Airlines CEO Doug Parker told employees, “We’re not going through the whole fleet and adding a bunch of seats to airplanes or taking out larger bathrooms and putting in smaller ones.”
That wasn’t true. Not only is American Airlines taking delivery of new Boeing 737 MAX aircraft with more seats squeezed into the same air frame than ever before, they’re going through their existing fleet of Boeing 737-800 aircraft and “adding a bunch of seats” (from 160 currently up to 172) and “taking out larger bathrooms and putting in smaller ones” (in order to fit more seats).
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 »
