Why Airlines Now Like Connecting Passengers More Than Non-Stop

Nov 04 2017

n traditional airline economics, a major airline makes money by locating its hub in a major city with significant business travel.

Ideally owning that hub, business customers will pay a premium for non-stop flights and there will be limited competition for those non-stops. The airline builds its schedule around meeting the needs of those business customers, and then fills empty seats at a discount with leisure passengers.

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The Really Offensive Thing About the Viral 9/11 Math Problem Is It Gets 9/11 Facts Wrong

Nov 04 2017

By all means teach what happened on 9/11. Offer context for why it happened, and what the response to the attack was. And use math problems to engage directly in the learning.

But if you’re going to do that please start with getting facts right. Otherwise it really is just a math problem with random numbers with a story of mass murder attached.

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Cool Test: Airline Picks Up Checked Bags From Your Home, Hands You Boarding Pass

plane with loading dock
Nov 03 2017

Federal rules notwithstanding the need to check in is a bit of an anachronism. Requiring it of every passenger does let an airline know a few minutes earlier how many people haven’t checked in, therefore losing their seats, and making seats available to accommodate other passengers. But is it really worth imposing the (small) cost on millions of people per day?

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Virgin America Flight History Won’t Count Towards Alaska Airlines Lifetime Elite Status

Nov 03 2017

A reader asked me how his Virgin America flight history would count towards Alaska Airlines lifetime elite status once the Virgin brand was completely folded in Alaska Airlines.

Alaska Airlines awards lifetime MVP Gold status after 1 million actual miles flown on Alaska (and not counting flights on partner airlines besides, for instance, Horizon).

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Man and Woman Meet for the First Time on Delta Flight, Have Sex, Face Charges

Stories of inflight sex are hardly newsworthy in and of themselves. They’ve been going on since November 1916, when a pilot took up a woman who wasn’t his wife in a Curtiss Flying Boat C‑2 over Long Island. They put the plane on auto-pilot — which existed back then! — but bumped and disengaged it, causing the plan to fall into the bay. They were rescued… naked. In modern times the idea usually goes like this: one person gets up to go to the lavatory. The other stays at their seat for a few more moments, and then gets up hoping nobody notices that they join in and that the other person hasn’t gone back to their seats. Joining the mile high club happens less frequently than you’d think because: There’s nothing sexy about an…

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