Impromptu striptease on Delta flight ends in hospitalization

by Tom Johansmeyer on

It’s always wild when passengers do crazy stuff on flights, but the trend has taken a new twist: the media always seems to be present. A CNN photographer was on hand to find bullets left behind by a law enforcement officer, and now a news manager from Newsday was present to witness a passenger stripping.

On Delta Flight 6562 over the weekend the woman, who hasn’t been named, peeled off layers until she reached a state only the TSA could appreciate, as flight attendants tried in vain to cover her up. According to the Associated Press, she yelled, “No! No! No!”

The woman was said not to have interfered with the flight and was taken to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center in Queens when the flight landed. She isn’t expected to face criminal charges. There’s no word on whether she left the flight with a thong full of singles.

There is a silver lining in all this. Not too long ago, Delta was proclaimed the worst airline in the United States. With perks like this, I expect that perception to change.

[photo by Steve Zak Photography]

Airlines add seats on optimism for 2011

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Do you think body scanners and TSA groping will keep people off planes next year? Well, the airlines don’t think so! Carriers are adding seats and flights, according to USA Today, in the hopes that the travel industry will continue to improve in 2011 as it has in 2010.

Through November this year, the top 10 airlines in the United States added 2.7 percent more seats for passengers than they had a year earlier, USA Today reports, with 90 percent of the airlines adding seats “by increasing the number of flights or moving to bigger planes.” JetBlue added the most with an up-tick of 7.6 percent, followed by Delta, which added 5 percent more seats year over year.

Business travelers are leading the charge, it seems, with airline readiness bolstered by a few years of tough times:

With signs of improvement in the economy, travel demand, particularly from the corporate sector, is on the rise. After three years of retrenching in the face of higher fuel costs and fewer travelers, airlines are beefing up capacity incrementally on profitable routes. They’re adding slowly so as not to have to lower fares. They’re adding seats on international routes more quickly than on domestic routes.

And the good news for the airlines is that these aren’t loss-leader additions. USA Today continues:

“We’re growing in profitable markets. We’re not flooding the seats with low (fares) to manufacture a competitive situation,” JetBlue spokeswoman Jenny Dervin says. “The overall supply and demand is in good ratio.” Much of JetBlue’s added capacity comes from additional flights to the Caribbean and in the Boston market, Dervin says. Other carriers are also sharply increasing international flights.

International fares are up 30 percent to 50 percent, with domestic fares up around 15 percent year over year.

[photo by mrkathika via Flickr]

Gogo Inflight Internet coming to 223 Delta Airlines regional jets

by Scott Carmichael on

Good news for regulars on Delta Airlines regional jet flights – as the first airline in the nation, Delta has committed to bringing Gogo Inflight Wi-Fi to 223 of its Delta Connection regional jets.

This is in additon to the expedited rollout of Internet access to its entire mainline domestic fleet. When completed at the end of 2011, Delta will offer Gogo Inflight Internet on 772 planes, or 80% of its fleet.

Delta Connection flights operate on routes like New York LaGuardia and Boston, Chicago and Washington D.C.

Recent enhancements to Delta Connection planes include the addition of first class cabins and upgraded meal services. For more on Gogo Inflight Internet, head on over to the Gogo Inflight Blog.

[Photo credit: Flickr/hyku]

Could you handle a gate agent’s job?

by Grant Martin on

Running a travel blog and working with twenty wonderful writers, thousands of media and industry contacts and maintaining a dozen side projects keeps my stress level remarkably high, but I could never handle what an airline gate agent goes through.

Airfarewatchdog‘s Ramsey Qubein spent a day working as a Delta gate agent recently, and his experience was as dramatic as I had expected. In one day, he experienced the full spectrum of travelers, from crazy, angry and delayed passengers to the nicest people in the world. Among the experiences that he collected in one single day were passengers who handed him boarding passes with their teeth, decrypting the archaic booking system and angry flight attendants offloading from Detroit. You can read about them all over at Yahoo news.

Needless to say, I now have further respect for a vocation that I already thought was pretty darn dramatic. I’m amazed that anyone can handle that job every day without developing an ulcer.

Delta sued over alleged false advertising on price guarantees

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Delta is headed to court over its claims of providing the best fare every day. Normally, this sort of advertising bravado wouldn’t lead to litigation, but the person buying the ticket happened to be Robert Izard … the “Izard” in law firm Izard Nobel LLP.

When Izard’s wife, Susan, sought a ticket to Israel on Delta, she was told the best rate for business class was more than $3,000 – if she paid for coach and used miles to upgrade. Her husband spent $300 to transfer enough miles to her SkyMiles account, adding to the tally.

What happened next is a lesson in “loose lips.”

After transferring the miles, Susan pushed a little harder on the phone to find out if she truly got the best deal. According to CTWatchdog.com (on which Izard’s firm advertises), the rep “finally conceded” that buying a business class ticket without any mileage games would have cost only $2,692.69, with all taxes included.
The report continues:

“Defendant’s representation that the economy class ticket at a cost of over $3,000 was “Today’s Best Guaranteed Fare” was false and misleading,” says the suit.

While the suit does not seek class action status, Wayne Boulton, an attorney with the West Hartford firm who actually filed the suit, said it could be changed if the firm discovers that others were also not provided with the best price of the day by Delta.

So, what’s next? A lawsuit signaling a decline in customer service when the price of oil climbs?

[photo by cliff1066 via Flickr]