American Airlines Boeing 757
Last Friday, American Airlines flight 414 from San Diego, CA to Dallas, TX made an emergency landing at LAX after passengers reported hearing odd noises and seeing pieces of the right wing falling off. The emergency was declared after the aircraft had already reached 29,000 feet.
The Boeing 757 safely landed at LAX. The ground crew found that lamination on the wing had come off. The 194 passengers aboard were placed on another flight and no injuries were reported.
Image: AV8NLVR
Click on the image to watch the video
In honor of Republic getting their paws (heh) on Frontier Airlines, I thought this video would be good for this weekend. It won a local Emmy award for one of their commercials. Head on over to Airline Biz Blog which posted the award winning commercial and also a collection of their animal tail ads.
The ads announce that now all Frontier Airline flights have leather, new(er) planes, and DirectTV…wonder if soon Midwest can advertise the same!
Rak Airways Boeing 757
Rake Airways was the main airline for Ras Al Khaimah, part of the United Arab Emirates. It started operations in February 2006 with “an ambitious expansion program,” as their website states. However, if you go to their
homepage, you will notice there is not a site.The airline halted all operations in May 2009.
The sign outside of my first Wi-Fi flight back in May.
Yes! I am coming out and predicting that someday Wi-Fi will be free on at least some airlines. I am not talking first class or business class; I am talking about free Wi-Fi for the entire plane. Let me explain…
Southwest Airlines is the newest airline to announce adding Wi-Fi to their flights. Many other airlines already have some or all of their fleets wireless. It took the industry a long time to start becoming wireless, but now almost all US airlines have at least a few Wi-Fi equipped aircraft. The rapid growth shows capitalism at its best. When one airline has Wi-Fi, it provides an obvious advantage over those that do not. However, when almost all airlines in the United States have Wi-Fi, where does one airline stand out over another?
Think about long-distance on landlines (you remember those, right; where wires connected your phone calls?). It used to be mighty expensive to call based on time of day, then there were flat rates per minute, then you could just pay a monthly fee and call whenever and whomever you wanted. The same phenomenon happened with cell phones. Minutes used to be costly, now companies have plans with unlimited minutes, rollover minutes, etc. As competition grows, so do the benefits for the customer.
With Wi-Fi on the airlines, it is a bit more complicated; airlines don’t run the Wi-Fi, independent companies do. Some airlines like American, Delta, and AirTran are using Aircell’s GoGo tower-based Wi-Fi service, but Southwest is using Row44, which is a satellite-based system. Either way, Wi-Fi companies are competitive businesses that have to charge the airlines, so the airlines would need to absorb the costs to provide free Wi-Fi.
I know, with airlines charging fees for everything today, why would an airline ever be willing to absorb the costs? I think we are in a unique time. I don’t expect all these fees to be around forever (at least I hope not). All it would take is one airline. One airline to announce they have free Wi-Fi. It might be years from now when this happens, and it might take a few more years for other airlines to follow. However, this is how things have become cheaper and free in the past. With so many airlines in the US, it is feasible that one might want to come across as a “high-tech”, “medium frills” airline.
Hopefully I am right in this one, but if I am not, I am still willing to pay $13 to access the internet on a flight!
Southwest Airlines flight leaving from Las Vegas, NV
A passenger getting naked on a plane is almost becoming old news. However, I am not tired of blogging about them, so I shall continue. This week’s nudity is brought to you by a Las Vegas bound guy and was found on the Airline Biz Blog.
Southwest Airlines flight 943 left from Oakland and was heading towards Las Vegas when a male passenger exposed himself to a female passenger. That wasn’t enough for him so he decided to hit another female passenger. This was enough for the people aboard and he was restrained.
The crazy man decided this would be a good time to get completely naked and rowdy. Passengers and crew became more aggressive in their restraining and the pilot decided to return the plane back to Oakland.
Image: gTarded