News and notes from around the interweb:
- Just cut this out.
Flight 2460 from DTW to IAH today. Gate agent called groups 2 and 3 at the same time, then announced that the bins were full a third of the way through the combined group 2 & 3 wave. I knew it couldn’t be true and thought about complaining but handed my group 2 bag over after the gate agent berated a man in front of me who tried his luck.
The Overhead Bins Are Full
byu/Reasonable-Topic-67 inunitedairlines - “Travolta’s famous ex-Qantas 707, N707JT… will be dismantled and put on a cargo ship to Australia, where it will be reassembled later this year to become a static display.”
This is somewhat unsurprising; the aircraft has not flown in almost 10 years and there are several very expensive airworthiness directives that must be taken care of, aside from other maintenance. HARS has also stated that there does exist a possibility that it could be restored to a taxiable condition, but as far as full airworthiness goes, it’s unlikely
John Travolta’s 707 is being dismantled and shipped to Australia
byu/fgflyer inaviation - Clean. Your. Planes.
@united do you guys enjoy not cleaning up shit pic.twitter.com/aMuiPsnH2Q
— danb.sol (@0x_danb) July 7, 2025
Just wondering if the cleaning crew actually cleans the planes? Entire seat and seat in front of me covered in sticky drinks @AmericanAir pic.twitter.com/hb6y3xeHDM
— DJ Akib (@djakib) July 7, 2025
- American Express will open a Centurion lounge in Amsterdam next year on Concourse E. At just 6,000 square feet it will be even smaller than Philadelphia’s. The current lounge pipeline includes Newark, Salt Lake City, Boston and Tokyo Haneda.
Credit: American Express - I am endlessly fascinated by Air Koryo, not least of which because the communist state airline has more than one class of service.
Flying Air Koryo: North Korea’s only airline with Soviet-era planes, and the infamous Koryo burger. A unique ride from Pyongyang to Beijing or Vladivostok! pic.twitter.com/SJ8oaZnRSm
— Fahad Naim (@Fahadnaimb) July 8, 2025
- St. Louis wants to ‘level the playing field’ with car rentals at the airport – by banning Turo
Is the overhead bin issue the #1 or #2 VFTW-themed complaint? Or is it dogs? PDBs?
@1990 – #1 is obviously bare feet. But overhead bins are probably #2 with a bullet. (Unless maybe you consider just “unions” generally as a complaint, or people being against a genocide.)
Was yelled at recently by a jetblue fa to put child’s backpack under the seat rather than overhead just because it was smaller than full size carry ons, only to find after takeoff more than half the overhead bins were empty!
@Sco — *clutches pearls* no, not anti-union sentiments… but they got us ‘weekends.’ Sniff. Also, which ‘genocide’? …uh oh. *gulp*
Since the OPS Agent is at the door to the jetway, scanning BP’s, how does he or she know that the bins on the aircraft are full? Does the FA in the rear tell the FA up front to call when the bins reach half way back so the OPS person can then lie to the CUSTOMERS, you know the ones who are responsible for their actually getting a paycheck? If all these Airlines do not want people to carry on the roller bags, then they should remove all of the bins so everyone has to check their bags. But, they do not want to drive away Customers by doing that, heaven forbid. Then stop lying to Customers and when the bins are actually full, then have the rear FA notify the front FA to call up to the gate and let them then start the process of checking bags. Doesn’t anyone use common sense these days?
Air Koryo seems better than United and American.
@jns — Bah! You more of a Tu-204 or Il-62M a fan? /s
American, it’s been a while since I worked in the industry but we were ordered by management to say that the bins were full after a certain point in boarding. It was part of their crackpot ‘on time’ pushes. They thought that it would cut down the amount of time people were hunting for carry on space. All if did is make people in the gate and onboard mad at us.
I hated being forced to lie to people to avoid being written up, but what to do? Risk your job over it?
I was forced by American Airlines to check some government equipment, despite explaining that I needed to maintain positive control of it. The bins had plenty of space. It was a 22 hour trip that ended up taking nearly 40 hours due to delays/missed connections. Then they lost the bags…
@Gary Leff — I’m sure you’ll address this soon, but did you (or anyone) see the recent email from BILT about Card 2.0 in February 2026? Looking like three products, a no-fee card, $95 and $495 annual fees. Not sure of details yet. Interesting. Cardless (uh oh). Wells may be ditching them. Time to burn those points!
As offensive as the UNcleanliness state of those seats/tables is, more context should really be provided to ascertain a more balanced opinion. Specifically, were those aircraft possibly on tight, delayed quick turns or were they launch departures from a previous RON ?
If the former, I can easily see the reason for the unkempt state, if the latter it’s inexcusable.
Great commentary on Air Koryo’s paradoxical classES of service…. and equally entertaining soundtrack on that ‘forbidden’ video ! Maybe Air Koryo can affiliate with ‘Sky Scream”
to at least partially compensate for the loss of “AeroFLOP” !
It’s an excuse increasingly used by airlines to get passengers to check ($$$) bags. Aer Lingus told me the bins were full on a flight in May – but when I got on board, there was absolutely nothing in the bin over my seat (in business class).