An American Airlines Boeing 757 and Airbus A300 line up for take off at Miami International Airport
Airlines have to start getting pretty creative to come up with new fees to help increase their revenue. Even though I get frustrated to have to pay the fees myself, I at least understand why I am paying them. American has started charging a new fee and I am not sure if it is worth it.
Depending on the length of the flight, you can now pay anywhere from $19 to $39 to sit in the first few rows in economy and be one of the first ones to board. There is no question being one of the first to board to make sure you have room for your carry-ons and it is nice to get off the plane instead of waiting in the back for everyone else to. However, I am not sure if the added cost is worth it.
United has something similar called EconomyPlus, but at least when you pay more for those seats, you also get additional legroom. With United, you can purchase the seats at the time of booking, but with American’s Express Seats, they can only be purchased from a kiosk starting 24hrs before a flight to 50 minutes before take off.
Virasb Vahidi, Chief Commercial Officer for American Airlines states, “Express Seats highlights American’s focus on offering customers what they value most.” I am not sure if passengers really value paying more to sit in the front the most. However, I haven’t done the research and spoke with a lot of American passengers about it, which I assume American has and they got positive feedback. The nice thing for American is there is no need to change the layouts of their aircraft to make this work, which means it will be cheap to test and cheap to pull the plug if it doesn’t work out.
1Time is a low cost airline based out of South Africa. They have a fleet of mostly MD-80 aircraft and fly domestically through Africa.
This MD-83 (ZS-SKB) was painted in zebra strips to celebrate the airline’s new route to Livingston, Zambia from Johannesburg. It seems the plane likes the paint job, look at her big smile!
Ah, Saturday Night Live is always (or sometimes) good for a laugh. Every once in a while a nice airline-related gem will pop up. This one is a bit old, but still a good one, making a little fun of Captain Sully and US Airways flight 1549.
Seattle's Airport will be getting body scanners soon.
Here they come folks! Body scanners are on their way to my home town here in Seattle. I like to think of Seattle as a pretty progressive town and I was hoping that they wouldn’t make their way to my hometown airport. But as the Seattle Times is reporting, they will start to be used in September at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA).
The TSA hopes to install 450 of the $130,000 to $170,000 machines this year and 500 more the next. Someone is definitely getting rich off all this added security.
Remember, you have the option to opt-out of the body scanners and get a full pat down if you choose. I won’t re-hash my love (that is sarcastic) for these machines.
I recently connected with film studio Filmetria, which is based here in Seattle and fell in love with new project: Team Marco Polo.
I know it is not exactly airline-related, but it does deal with travel and I think it is frek’n cool, so I am sharing it with you (and no I am not getting paid to write this, thank you).
It is a travel show for kids, but it is quite entertaining for adults too. It is as if Bill Nye The Science Guy, Steve Ricks and a barrel of laughs sat down and created a show. One of the main people behind the show, Bill Jeakle, was a writer for Bill Nye’s show and if you are a local Seattlite, you might also remember him as one of the high-5’n white guys on local comedy sketch show Almost Live (I am working on getting a picture of me giving Bill a high-5).
Anyhow, the Marco Polo character gives people a way to learn about travel without being bored. There are many other characters, as well: a Rick Steves spoof (he gives travel tips), a Tim Gunn Project Runway spoof (he covers fashion), an art loving nun, A bombastic history professor named Professor Bombast, Shakespeare, Voltaire, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Odysseus, and dozens more. They all do skits and songs to bring the art and culture of foreign lands to life.
Currently the show is only on YouTube, but they are hoping to change that. They are working with Seattle’s local PBS station to get the show on the air.
If you like what you see, please support their efforts. You can add them on Twitter, join their YouTube channel to know when new episodes are posted and of course watch and enjoy the show.
