Thousands of Boeing employees at the Renton, Wash. factory celebrated the 10,000th 737 to come off the production line. The milestone was recognized by GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS(tm). – Photo: Boeing
The world’s most successful commercial airplane has a lot in common with a popular sugary treat.
Seriously, the first time I walked into the 737 factory in Renton, Wash. I said to myself ’œgeez, this place runs as smooth as a Krispy Kreme processing line.’
Apparently spending 12 years in the south and being a fan of the treat made me liken the two together. At Krispy Kreme stores that make the doughnuts, an automated system puts the dough into a doughnut form, fries them, and then scoops them up onto the assembly line for their final bath in frosting.
Hungry yet?
Efficiency on the doughnut line makes money for Krispy Kreme, and the same can be said for Boeing. The 737 is nicknamed the ’œcash cow’ internally. Boeing hit quite the milestone by manufacturing its 10,000th 737 in mid-March. Boeing’s Renton factory cranks out 47 airplanes a month. The company hopes to push that number up to 52 later this year.
A Virgin Atlantic 787-9 at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport – Photo: Colin Cook
On a recent trip to Europe, my girlfriend and I had the opportunity to fly in two different premium cabins to compare different products. The first story covered the British Airways First Class experience on a 747-400 from Seattle to London. This second part reviews the Virgin Atlantic Upper Class (business class) product on a 787-9 from London back to Seattle.
The flight in BA First Class set an extremely high bar for any future flight to exceed. Simply put, it was the best flight I’ve ever experienced, both from a hard and soft product perspective. I was interested in comparing the premium cabin experiences on aircraft that are generations apart in technology. While the 747 will always be the Queen of the Skies and helped to open many international travel routes, the 787 is very much the future of air travel.
On the night prior to our flight, we discovered that Virgin Atlantic offers Upper Class passengers a premium car service from central London to Heathrow. Unfortunately, we were evidently not eligible for this perk, as we were traveling on an award ticket. We also discovered that when you are arriving by a car service (we took an Uber), there is a special airport entrance, the Upper Class Wing, for which you can register. Once I requested the Uber on the morning of our flight, I had our hotel call Virgin Atlantic to register the car’s license plate, which allowed us access to the private check-in area for Upper Class passengers. Now that’s classy.
An Allegiant Air McDonnell Douglas MD-83 – Photo: Tomas Del Coro | FlickrCC
I have always loved Allegiant. How can you dislike an airline that has no qualms with being an ultra-low-cost carrier? They can get you from point A to point B for cheap. Often point B is a pretty sunny place that you want to go to and relax, so it makes it all that much better. They also serve many small airports that have no other service. Not to mention they are still rocking the maddog MD-80 (although fly on them soon — they are expecting to be rid of them by the end of this year).
I’m chatting about them today, as we have two tickets on hand that we want to give away to our readers (that’s you). There aren’t too many restrictions for the tickets and it isn’t hard to get signed up. Keep reading to find out how to get a good summer trip planned.
UPDATED: The contest has closed. The question was: How many departures did Allegiant have out of Orlando Sanford International Airport (SFB) in 2017? The Answer: 9298 departures from SFB in 2017. The winner is Ryan L, who guessed 9,424. Very amazed with how many people were close. Thanks for participating and look forward to next time!
A Frontier Airbus A320neo at the Airbus Delivery Center – Photo: A. Doumenjou | Airbus
In the last few years, engine technology has improved significantly for narrowbody aircraft. The competitive nature of the current short-haul U.S., European, and Asian domestic markets have airlines competing on cost and efficiency to offer the lowest possible ticket prices to their customers. The single biggest direct cost on almost all routes is the fuel that the aircraft burns, and burning less fuel is always better. Frontier Airlines is one of a few Ultra Low Cost Carriers (ULCC) in the U.S. that has been aggressively pursuing a modern, fuel efficient, all economy-class fleet to complement their ULCC business model. They are a U.S. launch customer for the Airbus A320neo (or New Engine Option) family of aircraft and also operated some of the first commercial flights with the CFM LEAP-1A engine. I was lucky enough to ride on one of these shiny new aircraft and talk to the flight crew about how it is changing the way we fly.
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A sunny day in DTW. Thanks to the Captain for some great pictures! Photo: Kevin Horn
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En-route to DEN high above the clouds. It’s great how quiet these new engines are at cruise. Photo: Kevin Horn
JetBlue’s Mint seating is available on certain A321s.
In the premium transcontinental game Seattle doesn’t get much attention, but things are about to change with the introduction of jetBlue’s Mint product. While the premium experience might not be the first of its type in the U.S. market, it does give Seattle a true shot at giving passengers something better than a traditional domestic first class seat for those five-to-six hour transcontinental flights.
In preparation for jetBlue’s recent inaugural flight from Seattle (SEA) to Boston (BOS), we were able to give their Mint seats a proper test-sit in the name of journalistic thoroughness.
JetBlue loves to name it’s jets, too. This one is called “One Mint, Two Mint, Blue Mint, You Mint.”
The seats recline to 6’8″ jetBlue says that makes them the longest lie-flat domestic seats in the biz. Perks of the new service include gate-to-gate Fly-Fi WiFi, an extended slate of in-flight entertainment options on a 15″ seatback screen, fancy headphones, and even fancier meals from a menu that changes monthly.
