Dec 16 2025

News and notes from around the interweb: The President of South Korea is demanding that all bags get manually searched at Seoul Incheon airport because people might hide money in books, and apparently the small amounts of cash that could be involved are a government priority or something? This would melt down air travel, and be really bad prioritization – you do risk-based searches not blanket ones because focusing on small bills in books distracts from real security and customs interdiction. Such a strange demand. President Lee ordered to “look through all the books” in response to President Lee’s reply, “You can check if 100 bills are overlapped, but it is a little difficult to find them with the current technology if they are inserted like bookmarks one by one.” In addition, he said, “People…

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Dec 15 2025

American replaced the surprisingly good turkey wrap on JFK–Austin with a turkey, brie, and cranberry sandwich on brioche — and the brie is literally a thick chunk, not spread. It’s not terrible, but it’s a step back in execution (and still miles better than the sweaty $16 steak sandwich from this summer).

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Dec 14 2025

An internal American Airlines document says customers can now book online up to 331 days in advance, with the longer window currently shown to 50% of customers as it rolls out. The same doc also claims a real quality-of-life improvement: in most cases, prepaid checked bags can now transfer if travel plans change, making it easier to pay for bags online without worrying you’ll lose the purchase if you rebook.

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Dec 13 2025

News and notes from around the interweb: Hilary Swank freaks out on family at LAX doing Make-a-Wish trip, because she thought they were tasking her picture and maybe they were? My daughter had her first Etihad First Apartment trips at age 4. It had to wait until then because they’d grounded their Airbus A380s during the pandemic. But by that age she was fine in her own enclosed suite (and flying back-to-back long haul, Austin – London Heathrow – Abu Dhabi). At age 3 she would probably have been fine, but I was much more comfortable in more open settings like British Airways club suite and business class on United, Air Canada, Air France, KLM et al. It took me my whole life to sit in first class. She did it before kindergarten pic.twitter.com/hTARKa0wqM —…

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Dec 13 2025

A viral video shows airport security using a handheld wand and patting down a baby while the parent holds them during secondary screening. Once you accept blanket screening powers, officials argue they can’t exempt infants without creating an obvious hiding place — but a truly risk-based system would treat this as a vanishingly small aviation threat, not something worth normalizing.

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Dec 13 2025

Rove Miles is offering first-time hotel booking bonuses through December 19: earn 2,500 miles after $500 in spend or 5,000 miles after $1,000, using the promo codes. On top of that, both new and existing members can earn a 40% bonus on “Loyalty Eligible” hotel bookings—stacking Rove miles while still earning the hotel program’s points, elite credit, and on-property benefits.

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Dec 10 2025

American Airlines has already announced free Wi-Fi for AAdvantage members starting in January, but some flights are getting it early as “tests” begin — and that’s likely great news for most passengers. The catch is that when everyone piles onto a free connection, performance almost always suffers, so I expect today’s relatively usable paid AA Wi-Fi to look a lot more like Delta’s slog once this fully rolls out.

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Dec 10 2025

Instacart isn’t just marking up groceries — it’s running quiet tests to see how much more it can charge different shoppers for the exact same items, potentially adding up to hundreds of dollars a year. Plus airlines forcing gate checks with empty bins, Austin paying subsidies to Southwest, and American’s spin on a reduced wheelchair fine.

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Dec 09 2025

United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby has been boasting that American is “bleeding” $800 million a year in Chicago — but leaked internal figures tell a very different story. They put American’s fully allocated loss at roughly $70 million in just one quarter, a big number but nowhere near Kirby’s claim.

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Dec 08 2025

Delta left more than 20 Comfort+ seats empty on a transcon while a Diamond couldn’t self-upgrade into them, which is exactly where their “extra legroom isn’t really an upgrade” strategy has led. In today’s roundup I look at how Delta is throttling upgrades, the new Vegas reality, airport therapy animals, boycott theater at 35,000 feet, and even a pigeon running wild on an IndiGo flight.

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