News and notes from around the interweb:

• The famous Boeing 707 barrel roll over Lake Washington

• Starwood will open a combined Aloft/Element hotel near Dallas Love Field. The Aloft will have 133 rooms and the Element 91.

  Aloft and Element Dallas Love Field will be constructed within one multi-story building with a common entry, but separate ground-floor public areas and elevators. The hotel will have shared facilities, including 6,500 square feet of meeting space, an outdoor swimming pool and a state-of-the-art fitness center.

  Reminds me of the Sheraton Macao which is also a Conrad and a Holiday Inn (where I was accused of stealing coffee).

  

• Etihad’s refreshed shared first and business class lounge in Abu Dhabi’s terminal 1 has opened. However the Etihad first class lounge in Abu Dhabi’s terminal 3 has been closed for a year and there’s no sign yet of its reopening. Premium passengers in terminal 3 can use the new US departures lounge (post-US immigration) or the terminal 3 premium lounge.
  

• It seems like Qantas can be almost as bad as United at handling irregular operations at least for flight departing Singapore.

• UK and Ireland residents who fly in premium cabins can earn 25% bonus Avios for flying BA one way and American the other. I don’t think this is a good deal, I believe that even British Airways elites are better off crediting most flights to American directly. I just found it interesting that they’re promoting BA members flying on American (which offers a much better business class than BA on most planes flying to London) with bonus miles. The two airlines, of course, share revenue across the Atlantic.

• Pointshogger interviews Aeroplan executives