News and notes from around the interweb:
- Alaska drops inflight satellite wifi price to $8. That matches United (mostly slower wifi still) and Southwest (crawling) but is still higher than Delta (satellite). Aemrican Airlines, which offers great streaming on narrowbody aircraft, is still generally much much higher – which will need to change (watch out for those ViaSat-equipped A321neos flying overwater to Hawaii without any coverage).
A decade ago I wrote that inflight wifi would eventually be free and it is on JetBlue. It was supposed to be free on Delta pre-pandemic but their Gogo satellite service couldn’t handle the traffic. Covid-19 and Gogo delayed us a bit, but we’re still headed there, even though American Airlines CEO Robert Isom has said his intention is to charge for wifi but I’ve reported that his airline was ready to pull the trigger and make it free three years ago, anticipating a need to match Delta.
- Man discovers secret to beating Salt Lake City airport’s half mile walk from security to gates bear in mind this is against rules at many airports.
@thestutteringskater Good news: I made my flight. Bad news: my rollerblades don’t qualify for insurance so I can’t save 15% by switching to Geico. #rollerblades #rollerblading #inlineskating #rollerskating #patins #airport #slc #utah #infrastructure ♬ Just a Cloud Away – Pharrell Williams - Russia has warned its airlines not to disclose data to IATA
- Qatar Airways launches new inflight meals for North America flights
- Austin airport has grown tremendously and doesn’t have enough jet fuel storage, keeping half the amount onsite as airports with similar traffic. They’ve been issuing regular alerts to airlines when their supplies fall below one day. Airlines have to tanker fuel in or fly with enough fuel for their return segment. So the airport planned to build more fuel storage on its property. Naturally, neighbors objected because that’s what neighbors do. And in Austin the airport is controlled by the City Council.
The City Council considered requiring starting a study over to build fuel storage at another location, delaying addressing the problem by years. But that effort deadlocked 5-5 with one council member not present so the airport will be allowed to increase fuel storage, while apologizing for past environmental injustice in that area of Austin.
This is building fuel storage on its own property, not condemning an African American neighborhood to build Washington Dulles because other proposed sites would have inconvenienced white residents… And tankering fuel and extra provisioning means burning more fuel for an extra couple of years, somehow that would have been environmental justice?
When your airport forbids roller skates, consider using your backup skateboard.
Really Gary? That’s your take on the airport fuel storage issue? Read today’s story in the Austin Chronicle.
The neighbors are complaining because they would like to not be slowly poisoned, not because “it’s what neighbors do.” A very reasonable outlook. We will just have to agree to disagree on this…..
United flies a 737-MAX from LAX to Maui equipped with Viasat with no coverage over the ocean. Learned about that the hard way.
@JorgeGeorge Paez: Really. There’s more chance of you polluting the groundwater from your toilet overflowing than a jet fuel storage. If you could see what protections are used for any fuel, including gas, storage tank, a political newspaper would not make comments about obviously something they know nothing about. From a guy (retired) that had contracts for military fuel tanks in the Pacific basin plus one gas storage tank at the Natl Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (Honolulu). Geez
Why is a 15 minute walk so terrible? I’m not even sure it that much more than average.
Harry thanks for the information.
Good to know both sides…..
Methinks frequent flyers are too much of couch potatoes. Seems to me that for most of your readers, this will be their only opportunity to get out and get some exercise. For the those that can’t be convince, death is a recourse.
I personally walk 5 miles in the airport to compensate for sitting on an airplane for 3 hours, every time I fly. I get to the airport early and walk.
@ Harry
@JorgeGeorge Paez
WOW! Two gentlemen with civilized comment and response on this site. Could this possibly be a trend?
I hope so One Trippe!
I also like the reasonable attitude of such commentators as well, One Trippe! Look no further than some of the recent threads that have blown up with political battles which do not belong on a website where we all have the common goal of maximizing our FF activities.