Good morning I had another burst of intense self doubt earlier this week. Are airlines really as stupid as I say they are? Or am I missing something so thunderingly obvious as to imply I’m even more stupid than I suggest the airlines sometimes are? This was triggered by the confirmation that Delta is indeed buying an oil refinery, and was underscored by the near unanimous chorus of approval by the usual talking head commentators [...]
Good morning Happy 60th birthday this week to the illustrious Boeing B-52, still operational as a heavy bomber, sixty years after it first took to the skies on 15 April, 1952. 744 of the planes were built, including 102 of the final B52-H model, of which 85 are still in active duty and another nine are in the Air Force Reserve. Current projections suggest the planes will continue in service until perhaps 2040. The plane [...]
Good morning I was excited to read about JK Rowling’s next book, ‘The Casual Vacancy’, being released in September – especially because it is a book for adults. But upon going to the information on Amazon, I saw that the book, with a recommended retail price of $35, is currently showing a street price of $21 for the hardcover book and $20 for the eBook. Furthermore, the $21 hardcover price is ‘only’ a 40% discount [...]
Good morning It is a strange and semi-random process, deciding what to write about. I started off Thursday this week with some half written materials for publication today, and then during the morning, stumbled across a strange news item. At first it seemed worthy of a single short paragraph in today’s compilation of stories, but as I struggled to distill the nonsense implied in the story down to a single short paragraph, I realized that [...]
Good morning Sometimes I like to open these newsletters by mentioning an anniversary date that falls during the week. This week, I’ll instead refer to the pending demise of another of the major names in US aviation history – Continental Airlines. Continental was formed in 1934, originally trading under the name of Varney Speed Lines, an airline operating in the southwest. It was renamed Continental in 1937 after being bought by its long-time CEO, Bob [...]
Good morning Wow. Have you ever woken up on a Friday morning to find the better part of 2000 emails having come in from overnight in your inbox? That’s what happened to me last Friday morning with the flood of responses to the reader survey about what you do on airplanes. Read on, below, for the results of this survey, and see also the additional two articles also offered up this week. And here’s a [...]
Good morning There are a couple of great additional articles this week; one where I gratuitously point out not just one but two ways that new airlines could be formed and viably operated, and the other where I bemoan this administration’s eagerness to disarm our pilots due to air travel now being sufficiently safe as to make armed pilots no longer needed as the ultimate last ditch defense (or so they say). Other than that, [...]
Good morning Our September North Korea tour continues to go from strength to strength, with yet another couple deciding this literally was a once of a lifetime chance of a unique travel experience and sending in a deposit this week. In light of the steady increase in participants, I’ve persuaded the tour operator to double the number of guides we’ll have with us. This is going up from two to four, so even though the [...]
Good morning I spent last week in and around Las Vegas. I’d quickly booked a ‘generic’ hotel on the strip for my stay, choosing based on convenient location (close to a monorail station) and price, and it was only as I was walking through the casino to their lobby that I started to get a terrible feeling of deja vue. Then I realized – oh no, I’m back at the Flamingo. The last time I [...]
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