Some British Air passengers got quite a fright on their way to Hong Kong when an announcement came on the PA that said “This is an emergency.  We may need to make an emergency landing on water.”  The announcement was made in error.  According to news reports, the pilot had accidentally hit the button that plays that announcement.

There’s really a button for that?

You may notice the next time you book a flight that we now ask you to provide both the gender (male or female) and a date of birth for all passengers.  Some of you want to know why we are suddenly asking for that — we’ve never asked for it before.

It’s a good question.  The truth is, we’re not happy about it either.  But a new government mandate from the Transportation Security Administration is not leaving us– or anyone else who sells airline tickets– a choice.  The new SecureFlight program now requires that all airlines collect this information from all passengers, whether those passengers book their ticket through the airline directly or through a third party partner like us. Read More ›

Mexicana Airlines, teetering on the edge of insolvency for weeks, has announced that they are suspending all flights indefinitely, effective at noon on August 28th.  This includes both their international and domestic flights.

The airline says it will try as best it can to rebook passengers on other airlines, but it’s hard to say how serious of an effort they will make. Read More ›

If you’re going to be hopping into a taxi in Beijing anytime soon, be sure you know the Chinese phrase for “Please don’t take Highway 110″.  That’s where thousands of motorists are currently in the middle of a ten day traffic jam.  Thanks to an ill-conceived (to say the least) construction project, a 60 mile stretch is completely gridlocked.  At some points, cars are only moving about a third of a mile per day!

Suddenly, Los Angeles traffic doesn’t sound so bad.

What’s next for the suddenly famous JetBlue flight attendant Stephen Slater?  His “take this job and shove it” episode has turned him into an overnight sensation with his new Facebook fan page already amassing 138,000 followers.

In case you missed it, Slater was the flight attendant working a JetBlue flight that flew to New York on Monday. Read More ›

In what seems like a ridiculous overreaction, the Senate and House of Representatives have passed a law which will increase the number of flight hours pilots need before they can fly commercially from 250 all the way up to 1500 – a whopping 600% increase!

Ostensibly, this is to prevent a similar catastrophe to the 2009 crash of a Pinnacle Airlnes jet in Buffalo which killed 50 and was attributed to pilot error.  Only problem is that the pilot of that plane actually had 3263 hours of experience — so this law wouldn’t have helped that situation at all. Read More ›

Mexicana Airlines has filed for bankruptcy protection and it sounds like this may be a little messier than what we’ve come to expect from airline bankruptcies.

Airlines like United, US Airways, Delta, and Northwest have all gone through recent “business as usual” bankruptcies, with virtually no impact to travelers.  But Mexciana’s situation seems a little different as the airline announced today that it is suspending new ticket sales on all of its international flights (including those between the USA and Mexico). Read More ›

If you’re like me, you don’t necessarily jump when the captain gets on the microphone and says he’s had to turn the seat belt sign on because there may be bumps up ahead.  Usually, when I hear this, I am half asleep, and I try to think how I can position my body or blanket or laptop so no one will see if I ignore the seat belt sign.

That’s a pretty dumb idea, as some United Airlines passengers learned first hand today. Read More ›

It’s true that paying fees for things like in-flight pillows and sodas can be irritating, but things could actually be a whole lot worse. You could be flying with RyanAir, the British low-cost carrier who has announced plans to start charging people extra for seats.

That’s right, if RyanAir has its way, the lowest fares that it will offer will entitle to you only to a “vertical seat” — in other words, a pole to lean against with a safety strap attached, part of their planned standing room only section. Read More ›

Everyone knows airline food is awful, but to most of us that just means it tastes bad.  According to a recent USA Today article, however, how it tastes is the least of the problem. 

At a recent inspection of an LSG Sky Chefs facility (the airline caterer for just about every U.S. airline), the FDA found, among other disturbing things, ants, flies, live roaches, and dead roach carcasses that were “too numerous to count”. Read More ›