United Airline's tail could use a little wash
On April 17th, 18 year old Jessica Cabot was flying from British Columbia to Florida, when she ran into some trouble while on a stopover in Chicago. Cabot is blind and she was waiting for flight attendants to escort her off the plane, but no one came. When she heard the plane door shut and latch she started to panic. After ten minutes two maintenance staff found Cabot and assisted her. She was told to wait until after all the passengers go off, then someone would assist her off.
After complaining to United, Cabot received a $250 airline voucher and a promise she would receive an apology. However, it took United five weeks to connect with Cabot and apologize. “They just called,” said Cabot. “I can’t even count how many times they said sorry.”
Sarah Massier, a spokeswoman with United Airlines in Chicago, said Cabot had a longer delay in getting an escort than expected. “We apologized to Ms. Cabot for the delay in providing her an escort, and have taken action with our employees and vendors at O’Hare to ensure this does not happen again.”
Cabot was told that the flight attendants were mortified Cabot was left behind. “She said they had done their sweep of the plane and I was a tiny girl,” said Cabot, who is 5-foot-3. “Does that mean if you’re short they’re not responsible?”
Cabot is returning home on a Delta flight soon and says she still plans to fly United (maybe just for the $250 voucher).
This comes after Air Canada Jazz recently left a sleeping passenger in one of their planes. This is not only bad customer service, but a huge safety issue. I know a lot of flight attendants are exhausted by the time they reach their final destination; I just can’t understand how a person can be missed.
Source: The Vancouver Sun Image: SFPhotocraft
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A United/Continental possible livery on a Boeing 747-400
A lot of talk about United Airlines and the Continental merger. There are quite a few people that aren’t too happy with the new combined livery of the new United Airlines. A while back I found a site that allows people share their photoshopped liveries and a few interesting ones have popped up for a combined Continental and United Airlines livery.
Be sure to check out their site for other possible combinations.
Image: Jetabout via Aviation-Designs.net
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United Airline's new livery and logo (does it look familiar?)
While I was out of town last week I was trying to keep up on the United Airlines and Continental Airlines merger. The news is pretty old right now, so I am not going re-hash all the talk about it [check Google News for the stories if you haven’t heard]. When hearing about the merger one of the things I thought about was the combined livery.
I have not been a fan of United’s most recent livery. The blue and white looked aged when it first came out. They have also been very slow to change over from their last livery (which I like better) to the newest one. While flying Continental recently, I realized how clean their livery looks. The blue and gold. Simple, classy and timeless.
I was really happy to see that with the merger, the United name will survive, but so will the Continental livery. The “Continental” name will be replaced with “United”, but the golden globe will stick around. I will miss the “U” from United Airlines, but overall, I think this is a very wise idea. Not only will part of Continental still survive the merger, but United will end up with a better livery.
My main fear is it will take forever for United and Continental to share the same livery, I just hope that is not the case.
Check out their merger website for the most up-to-date information.
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A United Airlines A320-200 lands while a Continental Boeing 737 is in the background.
Back home! It is a good feeling. One downside is I have a week’s worth of stories to catch up on, since I had limited internet access. I figured I would share some of the more interesting stories I found with you, in case you missed them too!
* Aeromexico is cutting flights after the new Arizona immigration reform, via BlueTales.
* United Airlines celebrates 80 years of having flight attendants, via Seattle PI.
* Airlines collected $7.8billion in fees last year. Yes, that is billion and yes, they will not be going away anytime soon, via Today in the Sky.
* The Boeing 787 Dreamliner lands at San Antonio for additional testing, via Randy’s Journal.
* United Airlines and Continental Airlines decide to merge, via Things in the Sky.
* Comparison how the new UAL/CO merger stacks up to its competition, via Airline Biz Blog.
* UAL/CO merger compared to TWA merger, via AviationWeek.
* Continental CEO apologizes for calling US Airways the ,”ugly girl,” via Today in the Sky.
* Monitor what your kids are watching, while flying, via Runway Girl.
* Video re-creation of the Turkish Airlines crash in Amsterdam last year, via Flight Global.
Anything else interesting happen that I might have missed?
Image: Rich Snyder
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Finnair MD-11 (OH-LGB) taking off in the moon light
It is that time again where I have quite a few blogs I never got around to blogging and they aren’t really timely anymore. Instead of just hitting delete, I want to still share the stories with you folks. Here they are:
* Photos and Video of a United Airlines Airbus A319 that had a landing gear failure. (via Flight Global)
* Get free cookies and toothbrushes at airports. (via USAToday)
* Delta Air Lines converts airports from Northwest Airlines to Delta. (via Delta Blog)
* An Antonov AN-124 flew a mobile Air Traffic Control unit to Haiti. (via Aviation Week)
* Qantas Airlines is getting rid of some of their business class. (via Aviation Week)
* Finnair has stopped flying the MD-11. Which is a total shame! (via Things in the Sky & Cranky Flier)
* People calling for a ban on pets being allowed in passenger cabins. (via The Independent)
* Google maps now showing live flights in Europe. (via tnooz)
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Image: KalleA