News and notes from around the interweb:
- This is an opportunity.
Did you know that 95% of the world’s population has never been on a flight? That means 7,410,000,000 people have never boarded an aircraft! #CaptSully #FunFact #AviationHistoryMonth
— Sully Sullenberger (@Captsully) November 5, 2024
- Award travel hack: Change your location from the U.S. to Finland when doing Finnair award searches for business class space
- Murder suspect nabbed at Dulles airport attempting to flee the country. He’d purchased a one-way ticket to El Salvador. Roundtrips are less suspicious! But it does trouble me a little bit that it’s Customs and Border Protection interdicting an outbound traveler.
Meanwhile, a man was arrested at New York JFK while enroute to Syria to join ISIS.
- US-bound passengers stuck at London and European airports after ESTA visa system goes down
- Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan: Earn 1,000 bonus miles when linking accounts and riding with Lyft worth earning this 1,000 points but on an ongoing basis I find Alaska only the second most valuable partnership earn opportunity behind Bilt (earning 1 Bilt point is better than earning 1 Alaska mile – Bilt even transfers to Alaska or to other currencies).
- Venetian/Palazzo also no longer linked to IHG after end of the year.
Hearing there were "extensive" layoffs at Venetian/Palazzo yesterday, across all departments. Among the casualties, we're told, was Jaime Miranda, Sr. V.P. of Operations who has been with the resort for decades.
— Vital Vegas (@VitalVegas) November 6, 2024
Captain Sully’s stat about “95% of the world’s population has never been on a flight” seems as though it may be dated (obviously, it was clearly once true). The current distribution of Global Population is estimated as follows: Africa – 18%, Europe – 9%, North America – 5%, South America – 5%, Oceania – 0.5%, and Asia – 59% (with Asia classically defined as extending West to the entire Middle East, North to all of Russia, South to India, and of course all of SouthEast Asia). Even if you toss all of Africa, South America and Oceania, figuring just 1/2 of North America and Europe gets you to 7 %. Adding in just 5 % of Asia gets you to 10 %. It would be interesting to know the source and the methodology behind the estimation.
I still encounter people in the US and some parts of “high-income” Europe who have not flown before. Just less likely to run into never-flown types in high-income countries than in poorer countries such as in most of Asia, Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe.
Stupid post of his when he doesn’t provide evidence or data.
@Adam T – as you can see from the outcome of the election, evidence or data is an outdated expectation. Just say what you want and it’s true.
As for the FinnAir hack. Did the same when I booked SYD to AUK said I was in AU and not USA an got better rates with conversion
The world population is about 8.2 billion people. 5% would be about 410 million. There doesn’t seem to be a source for Captain Sully’s statement. I could easily speculate that well over 410 million of the people currently living have flown considering how easy it is to fly in Europe and the USA along with the combined populations of those places. Adding to that are the rising numbers of people in Asia who have enough money to fly. Maybe the 5% was true 30 or 40 years ago.
I don’t care if the RCMP apprehended a murderer in Dulles. The important thing is that they were caught.
@Gary – Why do you say Alaska miles are so valuable these days? They’re next to impossible to use for first class on quality partners like JAL or Cathay to numerous locations in Asia and business class isn’t much better. The only airline with consistent award availability in first class to Europe is BA, with egregious surcharges. Beyond that there’s only Condor strictly to Frankfurt in business.