Browsing Tag: Business Class

The Korean Air A380 readies for departure at LAX. - Photo: Kevin P Horn

The Korean Air A380 readies for departure at LAX – Photo: Kevin P Horn

This summer, my partner Natalie and I decided that we wanted to visit one or two cities in Asia during the short window that we had off. I researched the airlines, routes, and cities that we were interested in flying to and ended up choosing Seoul and Tokyo for stops. I had accrued about 200,000 points through Chase credit cards and started looking through redemption options. A friend of mine pointed me towards Korean Air, since they were partnered with Chase for 1-1 transfers and had an excellent 62,500 mile redemption (63,000 since I could only transfer in 1000 point increments) for business class to Asia one-way. These flights had the option to select a multi-day stopover in Seoul, so it precisely lined up with our travel goals.

I booked two one-way flights to Tokyo Narita (NRT) in Korean Air Prestige class with a five-day stopover in Seoul (ICN). I ended up booking a return with United Airlines on an Economy Saver redemption for 35,000 miles. But I’m not writing this to talk about United economy; flying on the upper deck of both an A380 and Queen of the Skies 747-400 is much more interesting.

We get it. You love your electronics. You can probably go longer without water than without your laptop or iPad. So it was a nasty surprise when the U.S. sprang an electronics ban on all inbound flights from seven Muslim-majority countries. Any device larger than a smartphone (excluding medical devices) can’t be carried into the cabin, and needs to be checked instead.

Sadly, we at AirlineReporter aren’t invited to top-secret government intelligence briefings, so we can only hope there’s an excellent reason for the ban. The downside is a little more evident. Beyond the inconvenience, devices and their flammable lithium batteries are now all stuck in the cargo hold, where they are harder to monitor and contain.

Even so, the ban isn’t the end of the world. There’s more to flying than watching downloaded movies or checking your email on overpriced inflight wifi. Take our word for it. We caught a flight on Turkish Airlines, one of the carriers affected by the ban. We were flying out of the U.S. so we technically weren’t subject to the ban, but we decided to leave our laptops off anyways. And guess what? We still had a blast. Read on for the — count ’em — TEN great ways we still had plenty of fun in the skies without our electronics.

Condor Inaugural San Diego arrival - photo: San Diego County Regional Airport Authority

Condor inaugural San Diego arrival – Photo: San Diego County Regional Airport Authority

Recently, I had the opportunity to take my first ever inaugural flight. Condor inaugurated twice-weekly service nonstop from Frankfurt to San Diego and they were kind enough to allow me to tag along. This was a special trip for me, as I rarely get the opportunity to fly internationally in anything but economy class, as more opulent flying is typically not in my budget.

Not only was this a big deal for me, but this new connection to Europe is a big deal for the city of San Diego and the 3 million plus people in the metropolitan area. With the new flight, Condor becomes just the second nonstop connection to Europe, and first by a leisure airline. 

An American Boeing 787-8 (N812AN) at LAX; the 787-9 is a stretched version of the -8

An American Boeing 787-8 (N812AN) at LAX; the 787-9 is a stretched version of the -8

This story has been updated to include new information about the availability of premium economy and anticipated dates for domestic operations.

American Airlines today announced new details and routes for its newest addition to the fleet, the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner (789), which is set to arrive in the last quarter of this year. While American already operates 17 Boeing 787-8s (788s), four of the stretched -9s, with new business class seats and a cabin configuration to include a new Premium Economy section, will be delivered by the end of December 2016, with a total of 22 on order.

The 789s will initially be based out of American’s home base, Dallas-Fort Worth Airport (DFW), and on November 4 will commence service to Madrid-Barajas Airport (MAD) and Sao Paulo-Guarulhos International Airport (GRU).

AirlineReporter has received exclusive details on the inaugural route the 789 will actually fly…

Main business cabin on Swiss's 777-300ER.

Main business cabin on the Swiss 777-300ER

On June 10, Swiss International Air Lines officially inaugurated its new Boeing 777-300ER (77W) on its first regularly scheduled daily service to the United States. The debut flight took off from Zà¼rich/Kloten Airport (ZRH) and arrived at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). The 77W is the first Boeing product in Swiss’s mainly-Airbus fleet, and carries 55% more passengers than the Airbus A340-300 (343) it replaces on the ZRH-LAX route. Its first 77W, HB-JNA (delivered on January 29) with its special “Faces of SWISS” livery, made the flight.

A Swiss 777-300ER (HB-JNA) in special "Faces of SWISS" livery. Photo: Swiss

A Swiss 777-300ER (HB-JNA) in special “Faces of SWISS” livery – Photo: Swiss

Swiss gave the public a CGI-based video preview of the all-new aircraft and completely redesigned interior, and AirlineReporter was the first to confirm the delivery date of HB-JNA. We were also one of the few media to be invited to LAX for the inaugural events to take a look with our own eyes. Were we disappointed?