United Relaunches 787 Today With Houston To Chicago Service

by Libby Zay on

After four months of testing, the Boeing 787 “Dreamliner” will once again take to the skies in North America today. United Airlines is the first to kick off service, sending the Dreamliner skyward on a flight from Houston to Chicago scheduled for 11 a.m. this morning.

Earlier this year, the federal government grounded all 787 flights due to overheating concerns on the aircraft’s lithium-ion batteries. The grounding hit both Boeing and the airlines hard, causing snags in proposed routes and forcing some airlines to lease planes. According to Associated Press, the grounding hurt United’s first-quarter earnings by as much as $11 million – which is why we questioned whether or not the 787 is ready for flight, or whether the billions of dollars that have already been invested in the planes have caused things to be pushed along a little too quickly.

But according to several sources, passengers don’t seem too worried. United spokeswoman Christen David told Associated Press the company “saw strong demand for the flight from the first weekend it opened for sale.” United is starting slowly with domestic flights, and will then move into international flights in June with a new Denver-to-Tokyo service.

Currency Exchange: What You Use Matters

by Chris Owen on

To International travelers, the name Travelex should sound familiar. They are the largest airport currency exchange operator in the world. But a recent currency exchange study comparing the cost of using Travelex, some of the largest U.S. banks and credit cards revealed what experts already knew.

CardHub’s 2013 Currency Exchange Study compared the cost of the currency exchange services offered by 15 of the largest banks in the U.S. as well as Visa, MasterCard and Travelex. The study proved that using a no foreign fee credit card is the way to go on spending internationally. Banks charge an average of exchange rate of 7.1% and Travelex charges 15.5%.

Worried about using a credit card outside of the U.S.? Don’t be. Credit cards also provide fraud protection for just that reason.

“Even if a consumer uses a credit card with foreign fees – the average foreign transaction fee is 2.24%, according to CardHub’s latest Credit Card Landscape Report – he’ll still save 4.86% on currency conversion relative to the services offered by banks and 13.26% compared to airport currency exchange providers,” said CardHub CEO Odysseas Papadimitriou in a HeraldOnline report.

The best banks for currency conversion? The CardHub study indicates Northern Trust and Harris Bank lead the pack as they did in the 2012 and 2011 editions of the study while U.S. Bank and SunTrust hold the bottom two spots. On average though, banks are better than Travelex, saving an average 8.4%.Still, many travelers do not feel like they are fully packed for an international trip without some local currency from the country they are visiting. They want to arrive with local cash for a cab, food or supplies they may not have been able to bring on the plane.

“It’s just one of those things that have been traditionally recommended,” says Papadimitriou. “But with the banking system becoming increasingly digital, it makes sense that the easiest way to buy things in a foreign currency is with plastic.”

Credit cards are good. No foreign fee cards are better. Still, some cash will probably be necessary along the way tipping or making purchases in places that do not take cards. With that in mind, Papadimitriou recommends a debit card with low international ATM withdrawal fees but warns travelers to avoid dynamic currency conversion, when a merchant offers to convert your purchase total from the native currency to U.S. dollars.

It might seem as though that merchant in Venice is trying to be help make sense of how much a purchase really costs, in our own currency, but “they could be looking for an excuse to apply a high exchange rate and squeeze a bit more money out of you. It’s best not to find out, especially when you can use your phone or a small pocket calculator to make quick conversions and better understand how much things cost,” says Papadimitriou.

As long as we’re talking about financial security when traveling, what about pickpockets? Well, the days of those villains are ending. In this video we see that all it takes now is a smartphone to steal your credit card information.

An Airplane Is Born: Airbus A350 Shows Off Paint Job, Ready For Test Flights

by Libby Zay on

The first flyable Airbus A350 emerged from a hangar in southwestern France earlier today, showing off a freshly painted livery stamped with the Airbus logo. But the significance of this morning’s roll out goes beyond just a few layers of paint; according to Airbus, the plane has passed a number of milestones, including flight-test-instrument (FTI) verification, and should be ready for its maiden flight this summer.

According to Bloomberg Businessweek, the manufacturer hopes to bring the wide-body aircraft into commercial service by the end of 2014. The model has been built to rival Boeing’s popular 777 model as well as the 787 “Dreamliner,” which has come under fire recently due to overheating concerns on the aircraft’s lithium-ion batteries.

[Photo credit: P. Pigeyre (Courtesy Airbus)]

Spirit Airlines Ditches Toll-Free Customer Service Line

by Libby Zay on

Famous for its no-frills approach (and for being the first airline to charge for carry-on bags), Spirit Airlines has decided it no longer needs a toll-free customer service line, the Los Angeles Times is reporting. In lieu of a 1-800 number, Spirit quietly replaced all its phone numbers with 801 area codes, which correspond with a geographic area in Utah.

The change won’t affect most mobile customers, who typically have unlimited long-distance calling plans. But according to the L.A. Times, people dialing Spirit from a landline could incur fees up to 18 cents per minute, depending on the phone plan. Let’s just hope Spirit doesn’t have long wait times for speaking with customer service reps, or else fees could start adding up quickly.

“Our new numbers are allowing us to keep our costs low, which we in turn continue to pass along to our customers by way of the ultra-low fares they have come to know and love,” airline spokeswoman Misty Pinson told the news outlet. Although the toll-charge number doesn’t seem like it will hit most wallets, when coupled with the airline’s 71 other passenger fees, the price of a “low cost” flight just keeps getting higher and higher.

[Via Skift]

[Photo credit: Flickr user ​Clemson]

United To Restart Dreamliner Flights – But Is It Ready?

by Libby Zay on

United Airlines will send Boeing 787 “Dreamliner” flights back to the skies on May 20. USA Today is reporting this date has been pushed up nearly two weeks earlier than the airline’s original plans, which would have restarted flights on May 31.

In case you haven’t heard, all 50 of these state-of-the-art jets were grounded by safety regulators earlier this year because of overheating concerns on the aircraft’s lithium-ion batteries. The grounding hit airlines hard, causing snags in proposed routes and forcing some airlines to lease planes. The St. Louis Business Journal reports Qatar Airways alone lost $200 million in revenue because of the incident.

Although investigators have not found the root cause of the problem, the Federal Aviation Administration officially approved Boeing’s proposed short-term fix for the problem late last month, setting the wheels in motion for the return of passenger flights. Ethiopian Airlines and Qatar Airways have both already resumed Boeing 787 flights, and so far everything seems to have gone along without a hitch, but we’re wondering if the billions of dollars that have already been invested in the planes have caused things to be pushed along a little too quickly.

United will kick off Boing 787 service in the U.S. during an 11 a.m. CT departure from Houston to Chicago O’Hare. Would you book a flight knowing it’s going to be on a Dreamliner, or will you wait a little to see how things pan out?

[Photo credit: Dave Sizer / Wikimedia Commons]