This is a very interesting development for my hometown of Pittsburgh! Pittsburgh airport is long past its heyday, when it was a major hub for US Airways, with multiple flights to and from Europe operating daily. Since US Airways pulled out, the airport has seen a dramatic drop in traffic, and there are even considerations…
Over the past few years, we have seen a the introduction of quite a few “ultra premium” credit cards. These are cards the generally carry an annual fee of $450 or more, but (usually) with benefits that make the fees worthwhile. The American Express Platinum Card is obviously one of the more established names in the…
Flying Blue, the loyalty programs of Air France, KLM, and related subsidiaries, is making changes to award redemptions starting June 1, 2018. In the past few days, we have noticed that Flying Blue has removed the ability to perform a “Flexible Dates” or calendar search for award availability. Without this feature, Flying Blue members are…
For years, the longest nonstop flight—by distance and by flying time—has been the one between Newark (EWR) and Singapore (SIN). Singapore Airlines flew the route with a specially configured A340-500. The route operated for almost 10 years, from 2004 to 2013, until the economics no longer worked for ultra-long flights like this. We were lucky enough…
Asia Miles, the frequent flyer program of Cathay Pacific and Cathay Dragon, has long been a niche program for many of us in the US. It is not a strong program for earning miles, and does have pretty confusing award charts (yes, plural). However, it is a transfer partner of American Express Membership Rewards, Citi…
SilkAir is a wholly owned subsidiary of Singapore Airlines, operating mostly regional routes as a full service airline with its own fleet. It shares the same hub in Singapore, and has the same frequent flyer program with Singapore Airlines. However, it does not belong to Star Alliance since it’s technically a different airline. The arrangement is not…
Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) received its first Boeing 777-200ER plane back in February 2018, and wasted no time to deploy the aircraft for its flights from Kyiv (KBP) to Bangkok (BKK) and Tel Aviv (TLV). UIA is one of the larger airlines that doesn’t really belong to any alliances—they operate over 1,000 flights a week…
United unveiled the Polaris branding for their international premium cabin offerings almost 2 years ago, but has been making relatively little progress in rolling out all the changes they initially promised. There has been no new Polaris lounge openings since December 1, 2016, when United opened its first Polaris Lounge in Chicago-O’Hare (ORD). United launched…
Over the past few years, we have seen airlines expanding the ways by which customers can check-in. Of course, there are the options that people know and love, like Cathay Pacific’s in-town check-in, which allows you drop your bags at a city center train station before heading to the airport. Turkish Airlines’ “Miniport” service allow…
The A380 might not be a commercial success for Airbus, but it’s a plane that undeniably solicits awe and wonder from passengers. Many airlines have even installed special cabin products that are exclusively available on the A380, given the bigger footprint they have to work with. For example, Korean Air has an onboard duty free shopping area,…
