News and notes from around the interweb:
- Etihad has Flying Nannies, flight attendants trained to help with children onboard. It’s hard to even fathom such a service when you’re used to flying US airlines.
United Airlines hired the first female flight attendant in 1930, a woman named Ellen Church who was a registered nurse. Etihad is now bringing back onboard nurses but this won’t be on all flights, instead it’ll be booked by passengers needing medical assistance.
- American’s new connecting award availability created opportunities for holding flights and then dropping segments over the phone. Some folks are having difficulty getting that done now, but one agent just suggests throwaway ticketing. Don’t check bags including gate checking (or force an overnight connection so your bags won’t get checked all the way through to the city you don’t want to go to). And in the event of irregular operations make sure agents keep you on your original routing.
- Delta will fly Seattle – Osaka with a Boeing 767. That’s a long way to go on a 767, but hardly record-setting. Aeromexico used to fly Tokyo Narita – Mexico City with a Boeing 767 (7000 miles!), in the other direction the flight had to stop in Tijuana.
- 7 customer service lessons from the best Uber driver ever
- An oral history of Priceline’s acquisition of Booking.com
- American will offer non-stop Saturday service New York LaGuardia – Eagle/Vail operated by an Airbus A319. It’s a good route, but who wants to leave New York for skiing at Noon on Saturday versus maximizing their weekend? This is for the one week rental crowd only.
- A Lebanese woman was arrested in the Cairo airport as she was leaving the country for posting a Facebook video that complained about her belongings being stolen, receiving poor service, and being sexually harassed. The video contained profanity.
She was found “guilty of deliberately spreading false rumours that would harm society, attacking religion and public indecency.” Her lawyer makes excuses for her conduct, that she’s depressed and has had surgery “to remove a blood clot from her brain has impaired her ability to control anger.” In other words, conceding what she did was terrible but that she shouldn’t be held fully responsible for complaining about how she was treated in Egypt.
The Saturday noon LGA-EGE flight is perfect for people going to Vail/Beaver Creek for a week as condo rentals are most available as Saturday to Saturday stays. When I had school age kids, AA used to have that exact flight and it was perfect.
Agreed…nobody is going East Coast to Vail just for a weekend…from the West Coast, sure.
The late schedule actually works well for those starting their weeklong timeshares (which are EVERYWHERE in Vail/Beaver), as check-in usually isn’t until 4pm or so. The route is subsidized by Vail Resorts with a revenue guarantee.
LGA-EGE couldn’t operate any other days because the perimeter exception is only for LGA-DEN service, and Saturday is the only day for beyond-perimeter operations.
The Lebanese woman is spot on for making such comments. Too bad she is arrested which (to the reasonable person) shows CAI’s upper management and law enforcement are implicated in such illicit activity. But being sentenced to eight years in prison by a Cairo court is beyond comprehension!!!
A side from sexual harassment, I have experienced similar events of my belongings being stolen, receiving horrible service, and CAI employees actively seeking money and tips.
Priceline and booking.com is a fascinating story of Wall Street creating a huge business simply by throwing money at it. Priceline was so overvalued that they had cash to throw around to try to find a successful niche, and they managed to do so by transitioning into booking.com. Booking.com still seems overvalued to me; it’s market cap is only slightly lower than the entire US airline industry. I’d guarantee you that in the next 10 years, the US airline industry will make more money than booking.com, and has far more barriers to entry. Also, there’s nothing really special about booking.com. How often do you use it? I book less than 5% of my lodging reservations on it. It’s not an Amazon-like category leader.
@UA-NYC
As a New York resident who frequently takes weekend trips for pleasure, I’d absolutely use this route for a weekend IF the timing were Thursday/Friday afternoon and returning Sunday/Monday night, but would have no interest flying out on a Saturday.
I flew EZE-ORD on a 763 back in 2008. That’s a good 500 miles longer than SEA-KIX