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

Here’s a good web tool provided by the people at British Airways: the Jet Lag Advisor. They call it the “ultimate jet lag advisor,” and since there doesn’t seem to be much competition they’re probably right. Check out the jet lag app here. This is what BA writes about it:

Jet lag occurs when the body clock is disrupted by crossing a number of time zones. The symptoms can include fatigue, disorientation and an inability to sleep.

Working in conjunction with the UK’s leading sleep expert, Dr. Chris Idzikowski, we have developed the ultimate jet lag advisor. By answering a few simple questions regarding your recent or planned flights, we can advise you on the best things to do to minimise your jet lag.

Daily Candy breaks down some flight-booking strategy: When’s the best time to use a travel agent, and when you’re better off booking your flights online. It’s a good, quick read.

Wednesday, says Travelocity. That is, if you’re flying domestic, and your trip is within the next two weeks. Travelocity says all airlines release tickets each Wednesday for weekend travel this weekend and next. So says CNN.com here in The best time to buy everything…

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.

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.

USA Today has a useful air travel web application on their site. I love news sites that realize there’s more to news than stories: there are web applications, like this one, that improve peoples lives.

» Check out the airport delay updater

The FDA just “cracked down” on major airline food supplier Gate Gourmet’s Honolulu operations (read the article). In an inspection this year they found:

1. Live cockroaches
2. Dirty utensils
3. An oozing, pink slime (was it alive? they don’t say)
4. Trash cans near food

That reminded me of a tip one of my flight attendant friends gave me: don’t go into airplane bathrooms in bare feet. Or in only socks. Wear shoes. The floors of airplane bathrooms never get cleaned, and they’re home to more forms of life than your local zoo.

Don’t be the first to board. As a matter of fact, be one of the last. Flights rarely leave earlier than their scheduled departure time, and if they do there will be plenty of last call announcements. This way you can check out your seat and the people sitting around it; pass it by and see if there is a row empty, or a better seat. If there is, sit down as if it’s yours. If someone comes to claim it, then just play dumb, excuse yourself and move on. There is less likelihood that someone will claim it towards the end of boarding.

» Read the article

See what happens when you sit down one person to do one thing and do it well? George, a travel journalist already, now spends most of his time scouring the internet to find the inner workings of the internet air fare world. And how good does this guy get? Well, beside the fares he finds ($170 RT from Portland Oregon to North Carolina? Absurd!) he also breaks it down. Check out his analysis of the latest United deal: comes down to bogus.

He also finds such gems as the link to Independence Air’s corporate fare site, which gives you 20% off their regular trip prices.

» Visit The AirFare Report
I found this site over the weekend and it’s awesome. George Hobica, a travel journalist in NYC, surfs the web all day looking for cheap fare deals and posts them. A lot of the flight specials aren’t advertised by the airlines, he says. And many are supposedly that-day-only type affairs … check it out for yourself. He has a newsletter, and posts religiously. Many of the airfares are for travel to and from NYC, but not all. I’m definitely keeping an eye on this guy. I’m also curious what the travel agent community thinks about him ….