One Airline Thinks Covid-19 Is The Perfect Time To Start Flying Boeing 747s Domestically

by Gary Leff

Sep 03 2020

Barry Michaels has been trying to start an airline for at least 28 years. First under the name Family Airlines, and then Avatar Airlines, he’s had an idea to fly Boeing 747s between leisure destinations. He went to prison for tax and securities fraud raising money for the venture. The DOT insisted he give up control of the project.

Now he’s got a new pitch to investors: that now is the perfect time to start a new airline, because used 747s for domestic routes can be acquired cheap, and look at all those furloughed employees!

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Mother Of Two Banned From Airline After Taking A Walk On The Wing After Landing

by Gary Leff

Sep 03 2020

On August 31, Ukraine International Airlines flight 6212 from Antalya, Turkey to Kyiv, Ukraine touched down at Boryspil International Airport like any other flight on any other day. But it wasn’t any other flight, because a passenger – an “over-heated mum” – decided she needed to cool off from the warm flight, so she “decided to stroll along a plane’s wing” and has now been banned from the airline.

She opened the emergency exit and took a walk outside on the Boeing 737’s wing shortly after landing, in order to “get some air.”

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Life Hack: This Life-Sized Boarding Pass Will Never Get Lost

by Gary Leff

Sep 02 2020

While it’s nothing like injecting your boarding pass into your hand with an NFC chip, a user on TikTok offers a ‘life hack’ on how you’ll never lose your boarding pass: print it on five feet worth of paper.

But what about environmental concerns? I think this must be some kind of Woke Daily Double because you’re not just flying you’re wasting paper, too.

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Internal Memo: United Airlines To Furlough 16,370 Staff In October

by Gary Leff

united-plane
Sep 02 2020

Airlines are much smaller today than they were a year ago. They expect to continue to be smaller even a year from now and perhaps even two years from now. So they need fewer people on staff.

United, which was the first and most vocal about the need to shed staff, is now out with their layoff plans and they’re looking at shedding 16,370 staff come October, according to an internal memo:

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The Case For A Second Airline Bailout

by Gary Leff

Sep 02 2020

While I’ve been vocally against airline bailouts, one of my main frustration is that proponents have couched their support in terms of ‘the workers’ even though much of the money goes to the airlines themselves and protects investors and creditors. There’s been very little honest attempt to make the true case for payroll support grants.

So let me at least lay out what seems to be the strongest argument against my own position. It comes down to a bet that we’ll be past the virus in April 2021, that airlines won’t invest enough in their businesses to be ready to grow in the meantime, and that the country benefits most from having airline capacity.

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American’s Flight Attendants Union Fiddles While Rome Burns

by Gary Leff

Sep 02 2020

The American Airlines flight attendants union, Association of Professional Flight Attendants (APFA), is exceptionally weak. They’ve been dysfunctional for years. I’ve written in the past about efforts by the larger Association of Flight Attendants, which is affiliated with the Communications Workers of America and AFL-CIO, to get their nose in under the tent.

Reading through the mid-August minutes of the APFA’s Executive Committee meeting I was initially struck by just three things.

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Two Women Brawl On Delta Air Lines Jet Bridge

by Gary Leff

Sep 01 2020

The Atlanta-bound passengers were part of a larger party. You can hear another passenger saying, “Come get Aaliyah, she’s fighting” and “Aaliyah, stop, stop” then a man and woman approach the battling ladies who hit each other in the head. One throws the other woman up against the jetbridge wall. And a crew member calls for backup.

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In 10 States You Can Now Sue If TSA Screeners Intentionally Hurt You

by Gary Leff

airport security
Sep 01 2020

As a result of the ruling, you can now sue TSA for any intentional battery they may inflict on you as a passenger in the states of Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota. They join Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania (as well as the U.S. Virgin Islands) in recognizing this right of redress.

In the 11th Circuit states of Alabama, Florida, and Georgia you cannot sue under the 2014 decision in Jonathan Corbett v. TSA. Increasingly then we’re seeing a circuit split, making it possible that the Supreme Court may someday rule on TSA-imposed beatings and sovereign immunity.

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