I love taking pictures of and flying in wide body aircraft. Sure beats an ERJ anyday! From a travel perspective, it’s all about comfort. The bigger planes are mode spacious, have higher ceilings, larger bins and in upper class, flat seats. Some narrow body aircraft do too, but they are few and far apart. As per taking pictures, I just love these big birds. They are engineering in flight! A marvel to look at, both in the air and on the ground.
Common wide body aircraft one gets to see are:
Boeing …

Skytrak announced its annual rankings for 2012. They rank all the airlines in the world by polling 18m airline cutovers around the world. And for the year 2012 (drumroll please) the top 10 airlines are:

Qatar Airways (Qatar) – No Alliance
Asiana Airlines (South Korea) – Star Alliance
Singapore Airlines (Singapore) – Star Alliance
Cathay Pacific (Hing Kong, China) – OneWorld
ANA (Japan) – Star Alliance
Etihad Airways (Bahrain) – No Alliance
Turkish Airlines (Turkey) – Star Alliance
Emirates (Dubai) – No Alliance
Thai Airways (Thailand) – Star Alliance
Malaysia Airlines (Malaysia) – OneWorld (Starting late-2012)

I am particularly impressed by …

Airlines of the Middle East – Emirates, Etihad, Qatar are all hot commodities. They have excellent service, a great on-board product and are offering more and more routes all over the world. They are also buying up all new aircraft to make their flight experience even better. They also have kept away from alliances and have formed their own network of partners.
United, on the other hand, while it is also expanding its routes to the Middle East, has lost both its airline partners in the Middle East. It lost Emirates …

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 …

Time magazine believes that the the #1 way to get a Flight attendant upset is to keep talking on your cell phone after they have announced that you need to turn it off. I can think of many other ways to get a FA pissed off. Another one of Time’s own articles proves that they are not right, more celebrities have been booted off planes for using profanities than for using electronic devices. Gadgets just get a bad rap. Or maybe Alec Baldwin is just a bigger celebrity than Leisha …

The Airline world is made up of three alliances:

Star Alliance
SkyTeam
OneWorld

Understanding the alliances and the airlines that make them up, and which airlines do not participate in an alliance, is key to maximizing miles and status. What alliances allow you to do is pick one airline per alliance and earn miles on that one airline’s frequent flier program no matter which airline in the alliance you fly. That way you can maximize miles. Airlines not only give redeemable miles but also status miles across alliance partners, so this also maximizes Elite …

There are some unique cities around the world when it comes to flying. While they may be excellent destinations themselves, for long haul travelers, they are best known as being key transition hubs. Two cities that have earned this reputation are Dubai and Singapore. They are both in this position due to their unique geographical location but more importantly because they are hubs for two very large, world-class airlines that have a worldwide reach. Dubai and Singapore are not the only cities in their neighborhood. Both have other cities that …

Qatar Airways from the Emirate of Qatar is one of the fastest growing airlines in the world. They are working hard to match up with their elder sibling – Emirates. As Emirates has developed a reputation of an airline with a global network, excellent in-air service and brand new aircraft with extra comfortable seats, Qatar is matching up.
Qatar Airways – Global Reach
Qatar Airways flies to close to 100 destinations out of their hub in Doha (DOH, no I am not pretending to be a character out of The Simpsons, …

I have discussed the idea of having one primary airline you credit all your miles on in several previous articles. I have also discussed the importance of Airline Alliances and why the airline you choose should be a part of one of the three Global Alliances. As you go about picking your primary Airline and hence, primary alliance, one very important factor that needs to to be taken into consideration is that of hubs. Hubs form, there is no better way to put it, the hub of an Airline and …

One of the eternal dilemma’s faced by travelers is choosing between a low cost flight ticket and sacrificing the miles that one loses by buying that ticket, or buying higher fare tickets that will earn the full miles. Yes, you don’t always earn one mile for every mile flown.
Airlines sell tickets in different fare buckets. In the case of some airlines all fare buckets do not earn 100% miles. In fact, some fare buckets may earn no miles at all.
Cheap Fare buckets:
All airlines sell airline tickets in different fare buckets. …