Southwest Airlines Sued For Denying Early Bird Check-in Then Refusing Refunds

airplane cabin
Feb 21 2021

A customer paid for ‘Early Bird Check-in’ in order to board earlier – their flight was cancelled and they were rebooked on another flight, they didn’t receive the earlier boarding they paid for (they had to buy it again!) or a refund of their early check-in fee.

Naturally Southwest Airlines argues the case can’t be pursued because it’s pre-empted by the Airline Deregulation Act. They lost.

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Thai Airways First Class Golf Carts And Spa Treatments Will Be Missed

Feb 21 2021

Is it wrong to hope that the airline’s rehabilitation plan includes retrofitting existing long haul aircraft with a first class cabin? That’s probably more of a political move (to appease minor royal relatives and generals) than a business one, but I’ve genuinely valued access to their excess inventory through miles and points over the last two decades.

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Police Respond To Passenger Meltdown After Passport And Covid Test Refused At Check-In

Feb 20 2021

Thanks to a year-old partnership, if you want to buy a ticket from American Airlines to go beyond their destinations in Brazil you’ll generally fly to South America on American and connect to your final destination on Gol. One passenger tried to fly Gol to
São Paulo, connecting to American Airlines on an American Airlines ticket, and wound up in a confrontation with police in the middle of Gol’s ticketing office in São Luís.

Gol first insisted the U.S. citizen required a Green Card to travel to the United States, and then that American Airlines had Covid-19 test requirements that differed from the CDC’s. In the end though it was flying on an American Airlines codeshare that really fouled things up.

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Boeing 747 Engine Parts Rain Down On Cars From The Sky

Feb 20 2021

At least two people were injured when a Longtail Aviation Boeing 747-400 freighter rained engine parts down on a village near the end of the Maastricht, Netherlands airport runway.

The plane was headed to New York JFK and had just taken off when the number one engine suffered damage and turbine blades began to fall, damaging cars and hurting people including an elderly woman wo suffered minor injuries.

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Hotel Apologizes To Honeymooners Because People Could See Into Their Mirrored Sauna

Feb 20 2021

The five star Grand Josun resort in Jeju, South Korea is apologizing for a ‘mistake’ that allowed honeymooners to be seen honeymoooning in their sauna.

The sauna’s windows are coated to prevent seeing in during the day, but that doesn’t prevent people inside from being in full view at night – so blinds are supposed to come down when it’s dark. But they didn’t – and guests didn’t know this needed to happen.

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A Loophole To Avoid Canada’s New Quarantine Requirement

Feb 20 2021

Canadians are used to driving across the border into the U.S. to find cheaper airfare – even to get other places inside Canada. Flying from Canada to Mexico and back to Canada used to be known among frequent flyers as ‘the Mexican Hat Dance’. And the challenge of sky high fares for Canadians may get worse in the future with Air Canada acquiring Transat.

However Canadians have a new reason to make use of U.S. airports: a loophole that allows them to circumvent mandatory quarantine on arrival.

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Say Goodbye To Covid, TSA Is Hiring 6000 Screeners For Big Summer Travel Surge

tsa people singing
Feb 19 2021

The TSA, which manages security at most U.S. airports, is looking to hire 6000 screeners because they “expect to screen a higher number of travelers regularly by the summer months.”

There’s a worry over faster spread from the B.1.1.7 U.K. variant, and reduced effectiveness against vaccines from the South African variant. But there’s real reason for optimism that even with a virus that spreads faster, and even with one that can better evade antibodies, the summer at least should be ‘pretty normal.’

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