News and notes from around the interweb:

• Richard Branson said that the onboard bar will return to Virgin Atlantic. The airline’s CEO says not so fast.

  You know, we have a bar on the 787s and we have social spaces on the A330neos and A350s, and that tells us where we’re going. You can’t just change direction mid-course. The stream of planes coming in is of that nature. We like the bar, of course, but there are always trade-offs. The bottom line is that all our planes come with bars and social spaces.

• Passenger Discovers Blade Hidden in His Meal After He Bit Into It During San Francisco-Bound Flight

  Air India food can cut like a knife. Hiding in its roasted sweet potato and fig chaat was a metal piece that looked like a blade. I got a feel of it only after chewing the grub for a few seconds. Thankfully, no harm was done. Of course, the blame squarely lies with Air India’s… pic.twitter.com/NNBN3ux28S

  — Mathures Paul (@MathuresP) June 10, 2024

• Doctor of Credit says that Chase will now give a pop up asking whether you want to proceed applying for Sapphire and Freedom cards if you’re ineligible for a bonus (such as due to 5/24), similar to what American Express does. I have only seen one report of this in the wild.

  He thinks this “isn’t hugely helpful to most of us” but I’d say that overall it is a more helpful strategy and something that Chase should roll out to cobrand cards (with the caveat that their co-brand contracts may still require them to pay the airline or hotel partner for the new cardmember). That’s because denying a United card to a Global Services member or a Marriott card to an Ambassador customer is a bad experience that United and Marriott wind up wearing.

• Boom Supersonic Completes Construction of Overture Superfactory I’m not sure I’d count this as a major milestone since the ability to build a factory wasn’t one of the real major hurdles in delivering cost-effective supersonic flight.

• Kazakhstan’s Air Astana is offering a status match

• Mayor-elect of town near Acapulco assassinated

  Local media also reported Villalba had decided to run for mayor after his friend, a candidate, was murdered in June 2023….Since Mexico’s campaign season began last September, more than two dozen political candidates have been killed, according to Data Civica, a non-governmental organization. …Last month, five people were killed in an armed attack in Acapulco, just three days after 10 other bodies were found in the resort city.

• Marine captains honored for saving a man’s life in the Dallas airport