News and notes from around the interweb:
- Swiss mountain village is turning itself into a resort to avoid extinction
- Etihad is cancelling their Dallas – Abu Dhabi flight effective March 25th when American terminates is codeshares with Etihad and Qatar. They’ve determined the economics of the flight won’t work without the codeshare.
Which just goes to show, of course, that like when they eliminated San Francisco service and reduced frequency on Los Angeles, Etihad’s flying decisions are determined by the economic realities of the routes. Disproving the claims American made in ending the codeshares. #irony
- US postal service memo on banning sale of money orders to customers paying with gift cards. It leaves discretion to the employee as to whether they think the customer is paying with a gift card rather than a real debit card. And it mistakenly says gift cards don’t get printed with customer name on them.
- United will let you bid miles for packages to attend the 2018 Winter Olympics. United is sponsoring 6 athletes for the games.
- Sex offender designations on passports are stupid even though what we think sex offenses mean are really awful.
- United’s new smoked gouda cheeseburger features Sir Kensington condiments. Sir Kensington dubs themselves “condiments with character.” Who knew?
USPS computers are not hard-coded not to allow gift cards.
@mwwalk – there are reports today of hard coding
Crap. Typo above. I meant NOW. The usps computers are now hard coded to prevent gift cards. Sorry.
I believe that’s the buy-onboard burger for economy, which is available for first class in lieu of meals served. And Sir Kensington condiment is good – it’s the same ketchup served at Andaz 5th Avenue.
Sir Kensington is pretentious garbage.
As always, your “facts” about the Mideast airlines are only opinions rooted in your bias. All the Etihad cutbacks show is that even an autocratic regime with fistfuls of cash can only afford to lose so many billions on an unprofitable airline. This is not surprising — I’ve been predicting it for years while others like you cheerlead — because everyone eventually runs out of money when they have a bad business model. Etihad’s new CEO is obviously under orders to stem some of the bleeding. With AA not willing to codeshare, the bleeding on this route was going to get worse. I’m certain there will eventually be other cutbacks as well.
@iahphx it directly rebuts the claim literally made by the US airlines that they spend without regard to economics (tell that to air berlin and alitalia which they walked away from).
“Sir Kensington is pretentious garbage.”
I agree. It’s overly sweet and not nearly tomato-y enough. The best ketchup is actually Muir Glen from Whole Foods.