News and notes from around the interweb:
- Air France will refresh their Airbus A380 interiors but not until 2020. They still have angled business seats without direct aisle access in business class on that fleet. Avoid.
- Reader Robert G. writes, “21 people and counting to unload a 737. No wonder they’re bankrupt, they make TSA seem efficient.” I wonder how many South African Airways employees it takes to screw in a light bulb?
- Hawaiian Airlines could use A321neos to free up A330 for longer flights and add new routes. Some of the routes they’d consider include “Anchorage, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Austin, Toronto, Montreal, Edmonton, Vancouver, Calgary, Nagoya, Shanghai, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok, and Ho Chi Minh City”
- air berlin is telling employees to go find jobs, will shut down October 28th.
- Marriott’s SpringHill Suites Austin Round Rock has had several guests come down with Legionnaires’ Disease. Legionnaires’ Disease. (HT: Joe R.)
- Testing the Bombardier CS100
- Testing the Bombardier CS100
This LAX based flyer can’t help but think that HA is really rolling the dice swapping out wide bodies for 321’s on existing routes WC-islands. To me, having flown every airline there over the past several years, the widebodies are HA’s major, and perhaps only, point of differentiation. Think they are actually quite vulnerable to SWA.
Yes the HA 763’s are nice and I still love 2-3-2 seating, but some of these planes are now 25 to 30 years old.
Interesting!
Question related to Hawaiian miles, how can you extend the life of your Hawaiian miles short of flying? Did some spending on their Barclaycard, but the expiry date did not budge even after the spend miles posted.
Thank you.
I’m curious why you emphasized Legionnaire’s Disease the way you did; I’m guessing it’s because you think an outbreak of LD is a sign that the venue is a particularly horrible cesspit. I don’t want to play down LD, or even to defend the Spring Hill Suites, but: the most common sources of LD are evaporative coolers . (In fact, that’s how the disease got its name. The bacteria grew in the water supply of a Philadelphia hotel’s HVAC cooling tower and became aerosolized. The affected hotel was hosting an American Legion convention at the time, and most of the early casualties were legionnaires.)
The bacterium likes to grow in any reasonably warm water it can find; it’s actually all around you and you never even notice it. The only way it causes disease is if that water gets turned into a mist and inhaled – at which point it causes pneumonia. It’s a constant risk for any HVAC system that uses water evaporation (which is a LOT of them).
@Marc he probably emphasized it because it’s somewhat rare, he’s confusing it with something else, or he hasn’t kept up to date on his reading of ASHRAE Standard 188.
Emphasized because it’s surprising, not something you see at hotels often.
I’ve flown the AF A380 in the past, like the AF service and the quietness of the A380 in general, and don’t mind the angled seats. But the odd thing to me is that, at least TATL, AF does not charge less for business class than the other carriers with fully flat seats, and upgrade space has disappeared. Just on price, then, I’ve shifted more to other carriers. I guess their planes must be full despite the seats.