Building an empire includes top hats and private 737s
You might have noticed that after some down period (around two years), things have been picking back up again at AirlineReporter in 2019 (well, other than the last week or so with our servers). We are publishing more stories and being more active on social media. We have a renewed motivation and vision that goes beyond what you have seen on our pages for the last decade or so.
I am proud to announce that on top of still bringing you the awesome airline content you have come to expect, our brand will be expanding into some new frontiers. Over the years I have found that those who have an interest in airplanes also share similar passions with other transport related things. Our research has also found a number of other categories that you, our readers, want covered. Instead of putting everything on AirlineReporter, we have decided to create what I am calling the “Reporter Empire” where we have different sites that will cover the different niche topics. I want to take a sneak peak of what you can expect in coming in the next year or so. Of course I would love to get your feedback!
Clearly we spent a ton of time talking about Finnair’s new flagship Airbus A350s … but we never flew one ourselves. Well we’re about to fix that! On Sunday March 31st into Monday April 1st we’ll be flying Finnair’s inaugural service from Los Angeles LAX to Helsinki on the A350. It’s the airline’s first US route to get full-time A350 service, which means a huge passenger experience upgrade in all cabins. As usual, we’ll be live tweeting along the way @AirlineReporter.
Also we’re genuinely interested in your feedback on the video trip report format. Would you like to see more videos enter the mix? And subscribe to our YouTube channel to get a first look at clips from our trips!
Not literally, but honestly I think I would rather have deal with a literal dumpster fire. Over the last two weeks, you might have noticed the site down, no new content, things going wonky, and our emails not working. If you are reading this, things are getting better — hopefully. I am not 100% confident yet — I have been fooled before.
We were trying to move the site to a new server and I would say things didn’t go well. We have worked hours, and hours, and hours, and hours to try to make it work. To no avail. I used to love this technology stuff, but now not as much of a fan. I like writing and editing stuff about airplanes a lot more and hopefully I can get back to that soon.
You might have seen a previous post saying if you left a comment, I would mail you some free AirlineReporter.com stickers. The bad news is that post is toast, but the good news is I still have your email addresses. Once my email address is stable, I will reach out. If you didn’t leave a comment previous, but would still like some free stickers — leave a comment and I will make it happen.
This has been bad timing since we have picked up our game this year, providing more content per week than we have the last two years. Have no worries, we have some great content in the hopper and will be getting it out soon. Thank you all for your patience!
You might remember that we got to fly United’s inaugural Boeing 787-10 stretch Dreamliner service from San Francisco to Newark a few weeks ago. There was all the new plane buzz you’d expect. But one feature that deserved its own special mention was the plane’s inflight entertainment system. It was redesigned from the ground up to include tons of new features, from a better moving maps for the #AvGeeks (including us!) to live news updates, a movie+map split-screen option, a favorites list, and a trippy “relax mode.” Plus, the folks at UA went out of their way to accommodate passengers with impaired vision and/or hearing.
Read on for our report with all the details about United’s new screens in the sky!
Hello beautiful! My Alaska Airlines VIP Airbus A321neo. Yes, it is weird typing “Alaska Airlines” and “Airbus” together.
Change is inevitable — especially in the airline business. Change can be all fine and dandy when you are talking about it conceptually, but when the time comes, it is not always easy. As you probably know by now, Alaska Airlines and Virgin America merged, and the red/white Virgin livery is quickly being retired. Virgin was known to be a bit risky in their branding and marketing…. and Alaska played it a bit more safe. Although Alaska will be sending the Virgin America brand into the history books, it has been important for Alaska to incorporate some of the Virgin culture into the new merged airline. Not just for the customers who loved the Virgin product, but also for the employees who are in the process of getting to know their new family.
Ironically, the Alaska 737 with the ‘More to Love’ livery celebrating their merger with Virgin was parked next to our A321 at SFO – Photo: Jeremy Dwyer-Lindgren | JDLMultimedia
I was recently invited to fly down to San Francisco (SFO) to get a first hand look of the new Alaska Airlines product that will soon be found across the fleet. At gate 54B, the airline had set up walls, and inside were a variety of new products to be experienced. Also, there were experts to answer your questions about what was new. There was a special treat, too. What better way to put it all together than to take a special VIP flight on one of their Airbus A321s (that previously flew for Virgin America, obviously)?
I was interested to see the balance Alaska decided on, and get a better idea of my hometown airline’s future.
