Flying With Fish The Blog for Those Who Fly & Those Who Want to Fly Smarter

Yesterday, on the 11th of December, Delta Air Lines officially announced that it was purchasing a 49% stake in British flag carrier Virgin Atlantic, from Singapore Airlines, for US$360,000,000 and forming a trans-Atlantic joint venture.  Under the terms of the deal Sir Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin, will retain his 51% majority stake in [...]

When an airline’s social media goes wrong it tends to go really wrong. Social media going off the rails ends up taking a tool that is ideal for damage control and turns it into an instrument of brand destruction … especially for a global airline with a highly conservative.   Yesterday afternoon British Airways‘ usually [...]

All aircraft undergo routine maintenance checks at specific life cycle intervals, these checks range from a light A-Check through a heavy D-Check.   An A-Check for a commercial aircraft is typically performed around 800 flight hour cycle and often conducted during an overnight layover at an airport, requiring 20 man-hours maintenance.   The B-Check is conducted [...]

Just before my Hurricane and Nor’easter induced break from Flying With Fish I received an email from Tim Wesolek asking, “can you [please] explain how airlines come up with flight numbers?”   Well Tim, there is no straightforward answer, but I will do my best.   For starters, some airlines have historical flight numbers, such [...]

Following the mergers of Northwest Airlines and Delta Air Lines followed by Continental Airlines and United Airlines talk of further airline consolidation was rampant. Discussions of ‘the next’ merger was frequently fueled by US Airways’ CEO Doug Parker, with the logical tie up being a US Airways and American Airlines merger.   Now, as American [...]

For the past week the threat of the looming Public Sector labour strike in Britain gripped airlines and airports with fear.  As UK Border Agency Immigrations Officers announced they would take part in the public sector strike action today some airlines readjusted schedules, other carriers cancelled flights and London Heathrow Airport warned that passport control [...]

Businesses going bankrupt immediately conjure up images of windows being boarded up, assets being sold at auction and phone lines going dead … but that is not the case with American Airlines following its parent company AMR filing for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection this morning in US Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of New [...]

Security is a fact of life for airline travel and screening procedures vary from country to country … which leads to this reader mail from Gene R., from Pittsburgh, PA.  Gene writes “I just flew home to Pittsburgh from Paris with US Airways, as I have done a few times through Philadelphia.  When connecting through [...]

I have written about airline call signs before … but not in almost three years … so this reader mail caught my attention.   Alberto Lopez, from Barcelona, Spain, writes “I was recently listening to air traffic control while waiting for a flight home from Chicago and noted many airlines do not use their name [...]

It was a rough year for airlines in 2008, fuel prices were climbing at impossible rates, passenger numbers were dropping, the introduction of ancillary fees were being introduced and airlines of all sizes were feeling the impact around the world. As April 2008 began the writing was on the wall for some airlines that managed [...]