Category Archives for Airlines.
Air France flight 356 from Paris Charles de Gaulle to Toronto Pearson experienced a tail strike as it attempted to land, aborted the landing and executed a go around. It’s one of the worst tail strikes I’ve seen in some time. Fourteen minutes later it executed its second landing on runway 4L.
As part of a massive pandemic bailout of Air France KLM the French government banned the airline from flying the shortest domestic hops that can be taken by train in the name of the environment.
Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) is going after United Airlines online after a United agent refused to allow Congressman Crenshaw’s wife and her mother travel with their dog. The agent reportedly grabbed at the dog, even after his wife agreed to simply fly Southwest instead. Crenshaw says that the agent wanted to photograph the dog as part of getting them banned from the airline. His wife is taking their child away from the incident and the agent grabs at the dog.
Saturday Night Live has produced a commercial for Alaska Airlines in the aftermath of the Boeing 737 MAX 9 whose door plug separated from the aircraft fuselage during flight.
As long as you’re in the first half of boarding you’re going to be fine and you really don’t want to be on board longer than that anyway so following this advice to board with group one doesn’t actually make you better off. You just stay on the plane longer.
ATC says “we are dispatching emergency services to your location now.” And the pilot gives their location as “Across from the Wendy’s and Aldi’s.”
When JetBlue lost, their stock soared. This is a bad deal for JetBlue shareholders, with the airline overpaying ($3.8 billion) for access to planes and pilots, and taking on the distractions, costs, and capital expenses of a merger and retrofit of Spirit Airlines aircraft. The federal government was doing them a favor by suing to block the deal.
When business class mistake fares from 1,500 to 13,500 points one way were recently offered, Flying Blue considered honoring the deal – it wouldn’t have cost that much – but they were afraid of the precedent.
Southern Airways Express flight 246 took off from Washington Dulles airport this afternoon at around 12:45 p.m. from runway 30. Two minutes later the Cessna 208B Grand Caravan landed on the Loudoun County Parkway. Two pilots and five passengers were on board, and all are reported safe. Dulles airport remains open.
On Thursday night an Atlas Air Boeing 747-8 cargo plane took off from Miami heading towards San Juan. As it climbed through 2,000 feet from runway 9, the plane’s number two engine caught fire. The plane returned to the airport and taxied to the apron under its own power. According to the FAA, “Inspection revealed a softball size hole above #2 engine.”
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 »
