“Good Night, Sweetie”: Now a Terrorist Transmission?
In yet another sign that exactly one airline is completely out of touch with customer-reality, the Twitterverse popped up a story today about media consultant John Battelle, who was recently stopped, on a wifi-equipped aircraft flying between New York and San Francisco, from using video chat to say “good night” to his wife and daughters.
Which airline is it? Here are some clues:
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“Dude, Where’s My Upgrade?” Why More Fliers with Miles and Status Get Stuck in Coach
by Janice Hough
www.ConsumerTraveler.com
While airlines like to promote free tickets with their mileage programs, the award that many even semi-regular clients want is an upgrade. These are the very awards that are getting harder to get.
At a time when flying has increasingly become an ordeal, an upgrade can often make the difference between a very pleasant and a miserable, cramped experience. Personally, give me a good book and an occasional glass of wine and I find flying in business class a mini-vacation.
Over the years, I’ve often had to waitlist upgrades for clients at the time of booking; generally, with enough advance notice, they clear. At least they used to.
These days, I have had clients waitlist 10 months in advance with no luck. Even elite fliers with 100,000 mile a year haven’t been upgraded on flights with over 40 business class seats left at the time of booking. Especially on transatlantic and transpacific flights.
Now this doesn’t mean upgrades never happen. But they’re a lot harder to count on getting. So what’s happened?
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Ryanair Dumps Passengers on Wrong Island — Doesn’t Care
by Scott Carmichael
www.Gadling.com
A planeload of passengers on a Ryanair flight from the UK to Lanzarote (one of the Spanish Canary Islands) learned the hard way that low cost carriers carry a hidden price.
Instead of landing in Lanzarote, the plane landed in Fuerteventura (about 30 miles from their intended destination).
Bad weather had forced the plane to divert, but usually when a plane has to divert, a normal airline takes care of its customers.
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