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

From 87 Bad Predictions About The Future:

«Flight by machines heavier than air is unpractical (sic) and insignificant, if not utterly impossible.» – Simon Newcomb; The Wright Brothers flew at Kittyhawk 18 months later. Newcomb was not impressed.

«Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.»
Lord Kelvin, British mathematician and physicist, president of the British Royal Society, 1895.

«It is apparent to me that the possibilities of the aeroplane, which two or three years ago were thought to hold the solution to the [flying machine] problem, have been exhausted, and that we must turn elsewhere.»
Thomas Edison, American inventor, 1895.

«Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value.»
Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre, 1904.

«There will never be a bigger plane built.»
A Boeing engineer, after the first flight of the 247, a twin engine plane that holds ten people.

Okay okay, they don’t want to, they will. At least on their regional carrier, American Eagle. But that’s okay. It’s an experiment: If it works, they expand the program. They expand it to American Airlines, they expand it to charging for pillows, they turn flying in the states into an a la carte experience. I mean, that’s how the cheap airlines do it in Europe. And it’s good to see airlines experimenting with their revenue models. Now, about that free liquor on domestic flights …

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I just wrote this email to a friend, and it’s worth sharing. In the past year the online cheap flight-deal landscape has changed. Things aren’t as simple — no, but they’re better. Witness the CheapAir flexible travel search: You don’t need to enter your desired dates, just your destination. Type in where you want to go and it returns all your options, with what dates they’re available. That’s pretty sweet functionality you couldn’t find last year.

So, here are the places I go now when looking to fly:

1. Air Fare Watchdog: I start here, scouting any deals on destinations that the flight searches might not turn up.
2. Orbitz: I go here next if my dates are set in stone.
3. CheapAir: I go here if my dates aren’t concrete.
4. Mobissimo: I finish here to make sure I didn’t miss anything.

… and find them with a cool map that pinpoints your location, and all the other places you can go for cheap (or kind-of cheap) dollars. Kayak Buzz is the best use of google maps and air fares I’ve seen yet, and I like that they took the time to put this together. I haven’t used it to book a flight yet, but I might. Here’s a link to Kayak Buzz. Now if only airfarewatchdog would put something like this together .

But it’s still good information to know. The Environmental Protection Agency studied the drinking water in airplanes and this is what they found:

Dangerous levels of bacteria have been found in drinking water aboard 15% of planes at US airports

However,

Twenty-four US airlines have now agreed to routinely disinfect their water supplies and monitor water quality in response to the EPA study. “Passengers must feel confident of the water safety on an airplane,” says Grant Nakayama of the EPA. “These new protocols will provide protection.”

All is good in the world again. Phew.

» Read the full article

BBC delves into this — I think it’s a valid issue … most of the things we’re most afraid of aren’t because they happen a lot, it’s because they’re scary. You’re hundreds of times more likely to die driving a car in the U.S. than you are in a plane, but people don’t care about stuff like that.

Read the article

What’s going on? (link to CNN article)

If you want all the plane crash information you can handle, head on over to Plane Crash Info and they will hook you up real nice.

Hey, in case you didn’t know, Flight Club is an online community for air travelers. Flight Club (the parent of this blog) has online tools that help members meet other members on airplanes and in airports — basically, we’re fun people that make travel more exciting. Business travelers, recreational travelers, if you fly for fun or for work, if you fly just once a year, Flight Club has a spot for you.

Membership is booming, so if you haven’t thought about joining before, then now is a good time. Registration takes about a minute and you can do it at this page. It’s free, it’s a fun site, uh huh oh yeah.

Virgin Atlantic Airways , yes, they have a sense of humor. It’s good to see large corporations with a sense of humor, so I can give them a pass on their latest promo: Who’s the top Jetrosexual. You read that right.

They just coined the worst coined phrase.

But, like we know, they have a sense of humor. They came up with the eleven commandments of Jetrosexuals. Here they are (written in regular english, not that “thou shalt” speech they have on their site):

1. You will have your passport ready to go at moment’s notice.
2. You will have a favorite airport and a good explanation about why it’s your favorite.
3. You will not talk your seatmate’s ear off.
4. You will never hold up the security line.
5. You will be able to order beer in at least six different languages.
6. You will spend no more than five minutes in the airplane bathroom.
7. You can pack a week’s worth of clothes in one carry-on bag.
8. You don’t own an inflatable neck-pillow.
9. You have at least one passport stamp from a country that now goes by a different name.
10. You travel Economy sometimes, just to stay humble.
11. You fly to move business and culture forward.

I was thinking of putting together an online poll that allows you to rate how many of these you match up with. Stay tuned.

A deep dark cloud rained bad news on the airline industry this week. Note: I link to CNN stories here because they don’t go into archive and don’t get deleted after two weeks. To recap:

• More than a hundred thousand passengers get stranded at Heathrow after a British Airways strike (article)
• The New York Times reports that airport delays are at the worst since 2000 (article)
• Airplane fuel is now an issue, prompting the majors to raise fares and raising the possibility of big problems on the tarmac (article, article)
• Delta and Independence Air share more bad news about potential bankruptcy (article, article)
• CNN investigates U.S. airport security for three months and finds lots of problems, then decides to pile on and release the news this week (swell move, guys) (article)

Hope this week is better, people.

Sunday Update: Plane crashes in Greece, killing all 128 on board (article). Not a good start for the week.