ASIA

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United and American Blindly Copy Delta For All of the Wrong Things

Jan 23 2017

If you ask the top leadership at American what airline they admire most, it’s Delta. Now that former American Airlines President Scott Kirby has taken the President job at United, the same can probably be said for United.

But they misunderstand the lessons of Delta, and blindly copy Delta moves assuming that if Delta does something — since they run the more profitable, better operation — it must be both right and best for their airline.

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Inside the Singapore Airlines Airbus A350 That Just Launched from Houston

Jan 18 2017

Singapore Airlines flew its first Airbus A350 out of Houston last night. Indeed, it was the first A350 in Houston period.

This is the new plane which will become the workhorse of the Singapore Airlines long haul fleet. They’re replacing a large Boeing 777 on the Houston run, and have also changed the city it connects in enroute to Singapore. Houston – Moscow no longer makes sense with low oil prices, so they’re flying Houston – Manchester – Singapore. And with a smaller aircraft they may be able to make the 5 times a week service work.

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Are Two Of My Strongly-Held Travel Beliefs Totally Wrong?

Jan 12 2017

I avoid Cancun. My mental model is spring break and disappointing resorts. You can use it as a jumping off point to explore the Yucatan but I’d rather fly into Merida for that. It’s super close since I live in Texas and Southwest offers daily non-stops for the 2.5 hour flight (United has seasonal weekend non-stops as well) so if only I could find a wonderful escape there…

I avoid all-inclusives. I don’t drink a lot and when I do drink I have strong preferences for what I’m drinking. Do I really want to be locked into staying on property since eating there comes at no marginal cost? Even though each generally has at least one ‘nice’ restaurant the food seems to most often disappoint.

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[Disturbing] Video of First Shots Fired at Ft. Lauderdale Airport and What It Means for Travel

Jan 08 2017

This week’s shooting at the Fort Lauderdale airport was horrible. I’ve held off writing about it until now, because so much of the information immediately following an event like this turns out to be wrong. With wraparound coverage of the event online and on television, there simply wasn’t much that I could add.

This was a terrible thing that happened. It appears to have been carried out by someone who was mentally ill, rather than a coordinated terrorist attack. There’s an old saying that two anecdotes makes a regulation and three makes a law. Nonetheless these incidents are rare, flying remains safer than driving even factoring in what happened in Fort Lauderdale, and I’d rather mourn the people who actually lost their lives than use them as tools to make a pre-existing political point.

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