kayakI have been using Kayak.com to find the cheapest tickets, hotels, and rental cars for a few years now (no I am not getting paid to say this). Looks like American Airlines didn’t like the fact that Kayak was pushing customers to other travel sites like Orbitz and Expedia instead of their direct site. Took Kayak to court and Kayak dropped all American Airlines listings.

Ah. The beauty of business sometimes. While all the bickering goes on, it just becomes more difficult for us, the customer to find the best deal and save a little money.

Source: Yahoo Image: FraKayak

engine-10-25-08-thumb-400x250Federal safety officials have some concerns about Pratt & Whitney engines and are requesting that the FAA orders inspections. The concern stems from when a Delta Airlines plane loss power at the time of take off and had to turn to the gate back in August. However to date, no inspections has occurred. Personally I kind of want to know my engines are working fine. Both of them.

Source: MSNBC Image: F18E777

united777-10-25-08-thumb-400x266A first officer of United Airlines was arrested in London’s Heathrow Airport after having a failed breathalyzer. Authorities were alerted by concerned ground staff moments before the plane was to take off.

He was in the cockpit of the Boeing 777. Passengers witnessed the pilot being escorted off the plane. This had to be a good and bad feeling for passengers. Knowing they wouldn’t have a drunk pilot, but the idea their pilot could have been drunk is a bit unnerving.

Source: FoxNews Image: Thomas Becker

lego_10-14-08-thumb-400x300Four flights were diverted by a few traffic controllers to help train a newbie (new hire). Although no safety was compromised and in the whole scheme of things it wasn’t the biggest mess-up in the airline industry in a long while, but it did break quite a few rules and caused un-needed delays on four flights.

To make things even better for the pilots, they were diverted into thunderstorms, having to navigate around them causing even more delays.

Making sure the trainee was on his game, one of the controllers instructed one of the pilots to give a wrong altitude to see if the trainee caught the mistake (which the story doesn’t say if he did).

Obviously the trainee must have done ok since nothing worse happened, but next time, maybe try the simulator!

Source: MSNBC Image: volcanojw