I love looking at maps. Especially maps with aircraft routes. I love trying to trace the lines between cities to figure out from which cities do the flights to a given city originate.
I found this beautiful world map showing the current United airlines international routes. It is a beautifully laid out map with very well laid out routes shown. Check it out…

I could not help but notice a few things (This map only shows international routes):
Latin American routes: Continental had a formidable presence in South and Central America. Look at …

United has been beaten up bad on its absolutely pathetic boarding process. Just the sheer number of comments I got on my last post on this topic (32 at the time of writing this) is telling. They have turned what used to be an orderly and efficient boarding process into a cattle call, where the only way you did not get boarded ‘first’ was if you did not have a United MileagePlus number.
Well, they seem to have noticed that we hate it. In an email I got today that was …

Jetblue (B6) and Japan Airlines (JL) reached a codeshare agreement for 21 US destinations from B6’s stronghold cities of New York and Boston. JAL had direct flights from both cities to Tokyo. The codeshare strengthens the interline agreement that they had established in February.
 
It is interesting to note that none of the 21 destinations are currently served directly by JAL’s Oneworld partner American Airlines (AA). That is not surprising given the strong ties B6 has with AA. Last November, AA announced the ability to each AA miles on select B6 …

As we had announced earlier on this blog, BMI has been acquired by IAG, the parent company of British Airways and Iberia. As a pert of this acquisition, BMI will no longer be a part of Star Alliance – that membership ends April 19th. It will soon become a part of OneWorld, allowing for redemptions on OneWorld airlines like British, American, Qantas. See full announcement is attached here.
We are all of course, hoping that BMI will adopt the Avios mileage program and allow us to merge our BMI balances with …

 
Malaysian Airlines is taking the first step towards what may become a trend – ‘Child Free’ cabins for adults who don’t want their flight being disturbed by noisy kids. They have just announced that the upper deck of the A380 aircraft will be child free. Here is a link to a report on USA Today.
As a business traveler who thinks he flies too much anyways, I appreciate the idea of a child free zone. I too want to be rested on a long flights before a business meeting. On the …

While scouring the internet for interesting things to blog about (it’s a slow news day), I ran across this article on Readers Digest (ok, I am getting desperate). It lists 13 things Flight Attendants want you to know about flying and their jobs, but cannot say out aloud. I was hoping that the post would include tips on how to score free upgrades and drinks, but…
Check out the article in full, but here are a few good ones:
#3. We don’t have a boyfriend in every city. …and our median age …

Electronics as banned from being used on flights during take off and landing – much to the ire of celebrities and flight attendants. The exact requirement is no electronics below 10,000 feet. That may be changing soon. Time magazine reports that the FAA is seeking to look into allowing electronics use at all times in-flight. This will keep celebs from getting booted off and us all from being forced to un-plug at least till 10 minutes into the flight.
This does not address the ban on cell phone use. I believe …

Emirates is one of the best airlines in the world – see my earlier review of Emirates. They and their main rival Etihad have just announced non-stop daily service from its hub in Dubai to Washington, DC (DXB-IAD). This is great news. The third major middle-east airline – Qatar, already operates a daily non-stop to DC. Good to see these great airlines come to IAD. This is also good competition for United as it already has non-stop service to Dubai and one-stop to Abu Dhabi (AUH), Etihad’s hub, and Doha …

The one most relevant to readers of this blog is 10% off (one time) main cabin tickets on Virgin America. … You will receive the 10% discount as a statement credit – you have to pay the original fare in full AND of course, using the AmEx card you have registered with Twitter.

Sky Steward blogs about American Airlines (AA) mostly. He has been working as an American Airlines Flight Attendant and is pretty well known in the blogosphere and on Twitter for his humorous take on AA. Lately (read: since AA’s bankruptcy) he has been very critical of the company and has made several parody videos. He has also been a ‘whistle blower’, sharing how AA executives and their families are routinely given First Class seats, bumping Elite members. Well, he has just been terminated. AA claims that his termination is due …