Flight Blog
News and Tips about Air Travel, Business / Industry, Flying, Airplanes, and other fun

If the answer to the above three questions is “yes, yes,” and “yes,” here’s a tip for you. When leaving your car in the parking lot, make sure your headlights are all the way off. According to the long-term parking-lot attendant who jump-started my car yesterday, almost all of the people who kill their battery had early-morning flights (in the Charlotte airport, that works out to 20 jumpstarts a day).

There are several ways you could remind yourself to turn off the lights: tie some string around your finger, tie a bow around your steering wheel, tape a post-it to your windshield.

I have never seen a flight-fare search program do this before: List the cheapest fares for one route for an entire month. This one does that, and it does more. Here’s a screenshot of the best deals when flying from Chicago to Denver in December:

You have to register before you can use it, and it’s free to use, and it’s well worth it. Check it out at http://matrix.itasoftware.com/cvg/dispatch/

Check out TravelPost’s list of wifi access locations and cost — it covers 218 U.S. airports. Useful information … if you’re looking for internet, that is. It was updated two days ago, which means this is something they keep an eye on. It looks like he information is pulled from TravelPost editors and readers…

Check out the list here, and view the full list here.

I’m not making fun of airline safety or anything, but I’m intensely curious why the U.S. Transportation Security Administration felt the need to single out “Toy Transformer Robots” on their list of what you can and can’t bring in your checked luggage and in your carry-on.

Also, and this is something I didn’t know: It’s okay to bring saline or eyedrops with you, as long as the container is four ounces or less. Mascara and toothpaste are still no-nos, that is, unless you feel like putting them in your pocket.

» View the TSA’s full list of banned stuff here.

From last week’s New York Times (via TheLobby.com): Tips and strategy on what to do when you don’t make your flight.

1. Choose your airline wisely. Continental, JetBlue and Southwest are among airlines that re-book you manually, which puts your flight destiny in your hands (as in, whoever gets re-booked first, wins).
2. Call your airline or travel agency as soon as you know you got bumped.
3. Use the “Rule 240 transfer.” This is a remnant from the pre-1978 world of air travel, when things were more regulated, and airlines sort of had to book you with another airline if you were bumped and the other airline could get you where you were going faster.

Read the article here.

From the BBC:
Aircraft hand baggage restrictions imposed after an alleged terrorist plot to attack airliners are likely to be eased next week, the BBC has learned.
Read the article here

This is a tip for the business and regular travellers out there who don’t want to buy toothpaste every time you fly somewhere: Put the stuff in your pockets. Yes, this won’t work if you don’t wear pants, if you have a metal container, and this won’t work if you get searched in the gate (which they hardly ever do anyway), but this will work most of the time.

Also, if you’re a smoker, go on and put your lighter in your pocket. Unless it’s a zippo it doesn’t have enough metal in it to trigger the metal detectors.

For those of you who don’t know, Flight Club helps you meet other people — business travellers, college travellers, or just ordinary travellers — on airplanes and on airports. It’s a quick way to make travel less boring, it’s free, and our community is growing faster than ever. You can sign up here, or find out more information about us here.