Even though airlines lost fewer passengers’ bags and bumped them off flights less often last year, people still found plenty to complain about. Figures from the U.S. Department of Transportation say that complaints against domestic and foreign service surged 5 percent in 2011, rising to 11,545 instances. [More]
flights
How To Win At The Airport Pick-Up Game
By 1.2.12
Picking someone up at the airport is a true show of care and dedication, because it’s such a hassle with so much potential to cause frustration. Here are some tips to make the selfless act a bit easier: [More]
Pilot Accidentally Locks Himself In Bathroom In Flight
By 11.18.11
When you’ve gotta go, you’ve gotta go, but accidents can happen even if you make it to the bathroom on time. Take it from a Chatauqua Airlines pilot who accidentally locked himself inside a lavatory during a flight, leading to a misunderstanding that sparked fears that terrorism was at work. [More]
Man Booted From Flight For Foul-Mouthed Complaint About Delay
By 6.15.11
Judging from the experience of a Brooklyn man who was tossed off a flight at the Detroit Metro Airport, it’s best to keep your language clean while boarding, just to be safe. The man says he was tossed off an Atlantic Southeast Airlines flight after a flight attendant overheard him saying “What’s taking so (expletive) long to close the overhead compartments?” [More]
Google Turns Its Eyes To The Skies With Flight Tracking Function
By 5.31.11
In its ongoing effort to maintain prominence in the search engine wars, Google added a handy feature that lets you search the names of two cities, along with “flights from” and “to” in order to get a quick glance of the selection of regular flights that connect them. [More]
Woman Says Southwest Refused To Serve Her Alcohol, Wouldn't Say Why
By 8.17.10
Angel says she hadn’t had any alcohol before getting on her Southwest Airlines flight last week, but for some reason the flight attendant decided–after first taking her order–that she felt “uncomfortable” serving Angel her vodka and Coke. [More]
Don't Tweet Steven Slater Jokes Or JetBlue Will Chastise You
By 8.12.10
JetBlue Tweet-spanks comedian Andy Borowitz for making bad jokes about their cranky flight attendant. [More]
Dramatic Animated Recreation Of Flight Attendant Quitting, Using Emergency Slide
By 8.11.10
Taiwan news media produced this thrilling animated replay of how JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater quit his job, complete with cursing on the PA, beer grab, emergency slide run, and embracing his lover. This looks like the making of the best Sims mod ever! [More]
Flight Attendant Weighs In On Angry Passengers, Job Stress
By 8.11.10
Steven Slater’s dramatic job walk-off slide-down on Monday wouldn’t have been anywhere near as cool if he hadn’t used that escape slide. Another flight attendant named Bobby Laurie, writing about the stress of the job for The Daily Beast, says popping the slide and stealing alcohol are “the two most taboo things in the industry.” He also says he’s fantasized about doing something similar after being forced to deal with angry or obnoxious passengers. [More]
Passengers Removed From Orlando-Bound Flight For Watching 9/11 Clips Before Takeoff
By 7.27.10
A father and his son were removed from an Air Canada flight in Toronto last Tuesday after another passenger saw the boy watching footage of the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks on his iPod, reports Canoe News. The airline says the pair were determined not to be a security risk, just people with a really bad sense of tact, and it cleared them for a following flight. [More]
United Overloads Plane, Kicks Off Passengers Who Paid The Least For Their Tickets
By 7.19.10
Last week, a United Airlines flight from Burlington to Washington, D.C. was deemed too heavy to fly, so the company had to decide who to boot off. In a moment of what was almost certainly accidental honesty, they targeted the 20 least profitable customers. We know this was their criteria because they announced it to the rest of the passengers, so those who remained were able to rest easy knowing that all the cheapskates, budget travelers and poor people were gone. [More]
JetBlue Now Selling Food On Longer Flights
By 6.23.10
JetBlue is getting into the box-o-food business on flights longer than 3 hours 45 minutes, it announced yesterday. The boxes are priced at $6 each, and there are supposed to be five different styles, including a “Wake Up” box with breakfasty food, a “Cheer Up” box with cheeses and fruit, and a “Shut Up” box that’s filled with nothing but peanut butter and saltines. (I may have made up that last one.) Fortunately for frugal travelers, the airline plans to continue offering free snacks as well, but they probably won’t tell you what to do as decisively as the boxes. [More]
Continental Takes Three Days And Counting To Fly Passenger From Texas to New Hampshire
By 6.20.10
Poor Ashley, all she wanted was to fly from Houston to Manchester to visit her friend for the weekend. She planned to leave on Thursday, but Continental apparently overbooked a whole mess of flights and could only get her to Detroit the next day. From there Continental planned to send her onto Manchester with Delta, but that didn’t work out either. After spending a night stuck in Detroit, Ashley made it to Atlanta, where Delta figured she would manage to catch one of their many flights to New England. Nope! Instead, things got much, much worse. [More]
Airlines' Approval Ratings Rise
By 6.8.10
You love the airlines now! Or at least, you don’t hate them any worse than you did back in 2007, according to a new survey released by J.D. Power & Associates. [More]
Huff Post Ranks Airlines On Safety Records
By 5.25.10
Even the Huffington Post admits that their Safest U.S. Airlines list is a bit unnecessary, considering the excellent safety records of everyone on the list. Still, it’s fun to rank things, so that’s what they did. U.S. Airways and JetBlue came in near the top, while Delta, United and Continental came in at the bottom. Regardless, you’re likely to remain alive after a flight on any of them. [More]
Passenger Accused Of Groping Sleeping Woman On Continental Flight
By 5.24.10
A 63-year-old New Jersey man has been charged with abusive sexual contact after he was allegedly caught reaching under a sleeping woman’s blanket on a recent Continental flight from Hong Kong to Newark. Passengers seated behind the man say they saw him reaching under the blanket, so they kicked the woman’s seat to wake her, at which point she alerted the flight crew. [More]
Always Keep Your Boarding Pass
By 3.29.10
Over on his travel blog, Christopher Elliott writes that if you want to ensure you’ll get the reward program miles you deserve, you should hold on to your boarding pass. In his example, a frequent flyer with Air France couldn’t get his Delta miles credited even though the airlines codeshare, because Air France demanded the original Delta boarding pass, which the customer had thrown away. Elliot managed to get the airline to cave on this instance, but he points out that it’s easier (and better in case of an IRS audit) to hold on to them “just in case.” [More]
Delta Erroneously Charged My Credit Card, Won't Give Me Refund
By 3.25.10
John tried to use travel vouchers to pay for a flight, but the airline only accepted one of them and charged the rest to his credit card. Now he can’t get his money back no matter what he tries. [More]
