As the aircraft climbed through 12,000 feet, the left engine “emitted a series of bangs and streaks of flames.” Pilots returned to the airport after advising air traffic control of an engine stall, and the plane landed safely around 35 minutes after departure. United assigned another aircraft to operate the flight and passengers were delayed a little over 3 hours.
All seems pretty normal, right? Well, two things are notable about this flight:
JetBlue does a really nice job with their onboard soft product. Maybe too nice of a job, considering they don’t seem to be earning a revenue premium on their transatlantic flights.
They’re promoting new meals and amenity kits. The meals seem good enough, the amenity kits interesting (especially with American Airlines handing out cardboard boxes), but what is really striking to me is the wine that they’re hardly even promoting.
This is seriously cool. JSX is going to run a special solar eclipse-viewing flight on April 8th. One of their pilots is ex-NASA. And they’re giving away the seats.
United Airlines has real claim to being the U.S. global carrier. They’re already the only U.S. airline flying to the Philippines – having launched Manila service – and now will fly to Cebu there as well (via Tokyo). They’ll add service to Morocco – direct to Marrakesh – and to Medellin, Colombia. Fifth freedom flying from Japan and love for their Houston hub make these adds even more interesting.
Instead of something like ‘I’ve got explosives in my pants,’ he might have tried out “are you a runway? Because my heart is ready to take off every time I see you” or “is this the boarding gate to your heart? Because I’ve got a first-class ticket.”
While the man might have gotten slapped, at least he wouldn’t have been arrested!
The customs forms for 1,966 cartons said they were nail clippers and pet grooming supplies. Anyone who opened up the cartons were supposed to just be scared off by the preserved rattlesnakes inside, I guess, though it seems like that would be at least a paperwork violation once found.
Hidden inside – the rattlesnakes were just a decoy – were duck intestines from China.
An Air Canada Boeing 777 was struck by lightning as it departed Vancouver and continued to London’s Heathrow airport. It was inspected on arrival. Video of the strike happening is impressive!
Chase’s Washington Dulles airport lounge is now open. It’s been redesigned as a Chase Sapphire Lounge, in the old Etihad Airways lounge space, and still hosts Etihad premium passengers for their once daily flight as well.
During a holiday stay at the Venetian in Las Vegas, a visitor from California woke up during the night in pain. The hotel guest reported being stung by a scorpion directly on his testicles as he slept. He said it felt like “sharp glass or a knife” in his genital area. And there was a scorpion attached to his underwear.
There’s a lot of confusion over taxes and fees when flying from London, because there are so many of them. European and British airlines like British Airways add fuel surcharges or ‘carrier-imposed surcharges’ onto tickets. These are extra fees for no particular reason, that are quoted as part of the total price when buying a ticket for cash. They are extra fees collected on top of your miles when you redeem points, making them even worse.
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 »
