News and notes from around the interweb:

• United has a new website to answer employee and customer questions and offer mea culpas. And no, they haven’t taken over Untied.com. Instead, they apologize for sucking and promise to eventually not suck as much as they have sucked over the past four years. In Joe Brancatelli‘s pay column, he thinks if United were serious about that it wouldn’t go forward with plans for a $3 billion stock buyback.

• How far behind are banks and retailers making the switch to chip-based credit cards? (HT: Alan H.) Apparently only 40% of retail checkout counters are expected to transition to chip readers by the end of the year, and many will never change.

• Virgin Australia has delayed roll out of its new business class 777 seat until 2016. There are apparently certification delays for what’s the same seat they now have on their A330s. It’s a gorgeous product, though.

  

• The British Airways new Concorde Bar in Singapore is part of its overall lounge makeover there. The next one will open in Dubai. I won’t be rushing out there, though, since even their flagship Concorde Room in London fails to impress.

  

• Aeroflot’s plan to purchase Russian rival Transaero for one ruble — and thus my hope to fly Transaero Imperial Class with Korean Air or Air France KLM Flying Blue miles — has hit a snag: Bankruptcy.

• Congratulations Delta! They say that they did not cancel a mainline flight in September and had on-time performance over 90% (arrivals within 14 minutes of schedule). Sure this excludes regional partners, etc etc, but is still darned impressive!