The JetBlue birthday party continues in Boston with free airline tickets

by Melanie Nayer on

To celebrate their 10th birthday, JetBlue is city-hopping and handing out free tickets to travelers. The catch: you have to find JetBlue, and when you do, you need to bring a present.

Last month the party took hold of Manhattan, and handed out free tickets to New York City followers who found the JetBlue freebies on the street. On today’s JetBlue blog, the airline said it will be galavanting around Beantown handing out free flights to a few lucky people.

The promotion is on Twitter under the hashtag: #JB10BOS and you’ll have to bring JetBlue a little birthday surprise in order to get your free tickets. As of 11:00 a.m. EST, JetBlue was hanging out in Boston’s City Hall.

We suggest you stop off for some pastries in the North End to sweeten the pot for the JetBlue giveaway.
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Air Canada passenger falls asleep on plane – wakes up in maintenance hangar

by Scott Carmichael on

We’ve probably all been there – you get on your flight, feeling so tired that you pass out before the plane takes off.

But in most cases, you’ll be awake right after you miss the drinks service. Air Canada passenger Kris Lines must have had the nap of his life, because he passed out right after taking off, and was awoken by a maintenance engineer inside a hangar at Vancouver airport.

Apparently none of the Air Canada flight crew members took the time to check whether they had left anyone on board, and simply got off the plane leaving Mr. Lines fast asleep.

When he complained to the airline, they offered him a “generous” 20% off voucher for a future flight. Mr. Lines is not satisfied with that offer, and calls it “absolute craziness”. I’m not entirely sure what else the airline could do for him, other than making sure their staff are retrained to check the plane for sleeping passengers. Still, if this happened to me, I too would probably fight for a little more than a useless discount voucher.

So, next time you feel like you are going to fall asleep on your flight, you may want to ask a seatmate to nudge you awake upon landing. Mr. Lines was lucky that the plane was moved to a hangar, at the end of the day, many planes are just parked for the night.

Southwest Airlines offers double Rapid Rewards credits

by Leigh Caldwell on

Southwest Airlines is offering “Double Credit Days” today through May 26.

To be eligible, you must be a member of the airline’s frequent flier program, called Rapid Rewards, but you can join today and still earn the extra credits.

If you already belong to the Rapid Rewards program, you still have to register online to get in on the promotion. If you fly and don’t register, you won’t get the double credit.

Once you are registered, you will earn 2 credits for every flight (4 credits for every roundtrip). If you buy Southwest’s Business Select ticket, which includes perks such as early boarding and drinks, you will get 2.25 credits for shorthauls and 3 credits for longhaul flights.

The trick here is that you must book and complete your travel between now and May 26. It takes 16 Rapid Rewards credits to earn a free Southwest flight.

On Wednesday, Southwest announced that its traffic increased slightly in March, 0.4 percent over last year’s numbers.

Next candidates for an airline merger – United Airlines and US Airways?

by Scott Carmichael on

In what can probably be described as “just a matter of time”, rumors are heating up about a possible United Airlines / US Airways merger.

The push for this kind of consolidation is being fueled by the last big airline merger – that of Delta Airlines and Northwest Airlines. Of course, anyone who has followed the aviation world will know that a United/US merger has been in the news before. The two tried to merge back in 2000, and again in 2008. At one point they had already put their signatures on the deal, but had to cancel the party when the government and unions voiced their opposition.

Despite the size of the two airlines, a combination would still only make them the second largest in the nation.

All these mergers mean fewer airlines (US Airways merged with America West several years ago), and a United/US merger may force Continental to go shopping for similar arrangement.

Of course, things are still in a very early stage, and have not moved beyond “speculation”. Time will tell whether three times really is a charm for these two airlines.

Spanish flight attendants produce nude calendar to publicize bankruptcy

by Laurel Miller on

When the going gets tough, the tough get…naked.

The cabin crew of Air Comet, a Spanish airline, have come up with a creative way to draw attention to the company’s recent bankruptcy: a nude calendar. Air Comet isn’t the first European airline to have pulled this kind of stunt; Ryanair and Viva Aerobus have also produced more SFW versions.

Through saucy photos that lend further credence to the “sexy stew” image, the female flight attendants are hoping to generate publicity about the 600-cabin crew members’ nine months of lost wages. They also hope to earn enough to fund their legal battle against Air Comet.

Photo spreads feature the fetching flight attendants in various flight-related poses, including one of a nude woman stretched across a jet engine, clad only in an emergency flotation vest.

This is not the first time Air Comet’s “air hostesses” have used their bodies to political effect. Last February, one woman conducted a naked interview in which she vented her anger at the company’s president. How very…Euro.

[Via www.eturbonews.com]

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