Two odd incidents in the past week where stuff has fallen off a plane into people’s yards:
A 2 foot piece of metal from a Northwest DC-9 fell into a family’s yard in Wisconsin last week.  No one was injured.  Said the home’s owner: "I was coming out with the
laundry basket to hang my laundry, and [...]

I’m kinda sorry I ever brought up the AirTran/Midwest merger, as it’s a long, long story that I’m guessing few of you care about (though if you live in Milwaukee you should care about it, because if TPG buys Midwest, you can expect Northwest, which is also part of that investor group, to make sure [...]

This really, really, really has been a terrible summer to fly.  A Continental Airlines flight from Caracas to Newark was re-routed to Baltimore because of bad weather.  Once there, it sat on the tarmac for 5 hours, where the plane (as we’ve heard in other cases) became disgusting.  The passengers started to get angry, then [...]

A Pakistan International Airlines flight attendant was caught trying to take a gun aboard a domestic flight she was working.  No word on why a staff member would be bringing a gun on board a plane, but if you check out today’s other story, it may make sense.

Whew, it was a MESS at LAX on Saturday as a computer glitch in customs caused a backup of 20,000 passengers arriving on international flights.  Passengers waited for hours with no water or air conditioning (this is becoming a theme this summer) as officials tried to fix the system, which contains a list of people [...]

Self Serving Post Alert:
The OTR has a couple of press appearances to pass on:
– We’re quoted in Conde Nast’s Portfolio talking about Farecompare (one of my favorite airline geek websites).
– The OTR’s Southeast Asian following is in for a treat, as I’ll be on Bloomberg’s Asia Pacific television channel tonight at 6:30 eastern time (or [...]

USA Today reports that Delta has increased a bunch of its fees without bothering to let people know (ah, sneaky).  Telephone reservations now cost $20, same day standby will cost you $50, and (most annoying of all) a $75 fee to book a "free" ticket within 20 days of departure.  We can assume others will [...]

In case you’ve been following this whole Midwest/AirTran debacle, it came to an end over the weekend. Midwest rejected AirTran’s takeover offer and accepted one from TPG Capital (formerly Texas Pacific Group) at $16 a share, $.25 a share more than AirTran had offered.

I’m not even entirely sure what this story means, but an Australian woman flying on a Delta Connection flight to Pittsburgh was stopped by police when she stepped off the plane because crew members alerted the cops that the woman had sworn at them during the flight.  During snack service, when the woman was told [...]

Alaska Airlines has completely revolutionized the airline industry, and it’s gotten virtually no credit for it.  First to sell tickets online.  First to allow check-in online.  Now, the WSJ looks at how Alaska Airlines has changed the entire check-in process at Anchorage’s airport.  In short, there are no check-in counters (they’re also building a new [...]