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Tag: Flights

  • Allegiant Air to Offer More Flights

    Allegiant Air has announced that they will be adding 18 new routes to their list of flights this year.

    “We are pleased to bring more convenient, low-cost vacation options to more communities,” Andrew C. Levy, Allegiant Travel Company President, said. “Allegiant is dedicated to making vacations more affordable for more people, offering our customers the lowest possible base fare and nonstop service to the most popular vacation destinations.”

    According to allegiantair.com, “Allegiant was founded in 1997 and is certificated by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) as a “Scheduled Air Carrier” with authority to fly scheduled and charter airline operations throughout the U.S. The Company also has authority for charter service to Canada and Mexico.”

    Some of the new cities that will now be served by Allegiant are,Orlando, Florida, Charlottesville, Virginia, Clarksburg West Virginia, Concord, North Carolina, Syracuse, New York and Manhattan, Kansas. These cities will bring Allegiant’s total to 99 airports throughout the United States. This total is two more that Southwest Airlines, who is the largest domestic carrier. However, Southwest has daily flights, while Allegiant usually only flies twice a week to most of it’s locations. This past year, 7 million passengers boarded flights with Allegiant.

    “We are proud to be the hometown airline of nearly 100 communities across the U.S.,” said Levy. “We look forward to providing more travelers with great travel deals to more places as we grow our fleet and our network, and continue to expand our other product offerings – hotels, cars and attractions.”

    To celebrate the new routes, Allegiant is offering a $99 roundtrip promotional fare. This promotion will be available for three days and will need to be purchased by August 22. Reservations can be made at www.allegiantair.com or by calling (702) 505-8888.

    Jude Bricker, Senior Vice President of Planning says: “We think our low fares and special package rates on hotels and rental cars will appeal to travelers looking to spend less on their vacations.”

  • Flight Diverted After Hitting Birds

    Flight Diverted After Hitting Birds

    A plane flight that took off from White Plains, New York on Thursday morning was diverted after being struck by birds.

    Airline Jet Blue today announced that flight 1205 from White Plains to Fort Myers, Florida experienced a “bird strike” shortly after taking off. The flight was diverted as a precautionary measure, in case the animals had damaged the aircraft or its engines during the collision. The plane landed soon after at JFK International Airport in New York City, with no injuries reported.

    Bird Strikes are an all-too-common, but dangerous phenomenon for flights that even NASA has researched ways to prevent. Birds hitting airplanes at high speeds can cause significant damage to aircrafts and jet engines. The FAA states that 121,000 “wildlife strikes” occurred in the U.S. between 1990 and 2010 (and average of around 16.5 per day) and that 23 deaths have been attributed to those events.

  • Lipstick Ban For Flight Attendants, No Nail Polish Either

    A lipstick ban for Turkish flight attendants has been lifted after a public backlash ensued.

    Turkish Airlines says that several low-level managers put together a document saying that red and pink lipstick and nail polish would be banned for all female flight attendants without consulting the management. Chief Executive Temel Kotil responded to the document after receiving several complaints that the airline was moving too close to Islamic values for comfort.

    “As you know, some in Turkey are a little bit keen about these issues,” said Kotil. “We are a great global carrier and we know what we are doing. As to the lipstick, we had no problems but somehow low-level managers put together a paper without asking us and that paper leaked to the media and became a big issue.”

    Kotil now says that flight attendants are free to wear the lipstick and nail shade of their choice.

    “Staff can use the colour they want. This measure was not approved by the hierarchy,” Kotilo said.

    While they may not be getting that conservative, the airline has imposed a recent ban on alcohol served during flights.

  • 1,000 Flights Canceled as Snow Blankets Chicago

    The Chicago Tribune is reporting that over 1,000 Chicago-area flights have been cancelled. More than 850 flights out of Chicago O’Hare International have been cancelled and Midway Airport has cancelled at least 230 flights.

    The cancellations come as a winter storm is beginning to drop snow on the city. The U.S. National Weather Service (NWS) is predicting up to 12 inches of snow could fall the Chicago area today.

    The NWS has also issued a winter storm warning and a hazardous weather outlook for the greater Chicago area that lasts until midnight. From the NWS warning:

    A WINTER STORM WARNING FOR HEAVY SNOW MEANS SEVERE WINTER WEATHER CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED. SIGNIFICANT AMOUNTS OF SNOW ARE FORECAST THAT WILL MAKE TRAVEL DANGEROUS. CONSIDER ONLY TRAVELING IF IN AN EMERGENCY. IF YOU MUST TRAVEL…KEEP AN EXTRA FLASHLIGHT… FOOD…AND WATER IN YOUR VEHICLE IN CASE OF AN EMERGENCY.

    Schools throughout Chicago were closed or closed early today. The Tribune report states that the Chicago Department of Streets and Sanitation has been salting the roads in and around the city since early this morning, and the Illinois Tollway has snowplows standing by.

  • NASA Prototype Forecasts Storms For Transoceanic Flights

    A new NASA-funded system developed by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) is now providing weather forecasts so that plane flights can avoid major storms over remote ocean regions.

    The prototype system provides eight-hour forecasts that are designed for air traffic controllers and pilots. The system combines satellite data and computer weather models to map storms over the world’s oceans. The technology is based on NCAR systems that alert pilots and air traffic controllers of storms over the continental United States. The new system’s creation was inspired in part by the crash of Air France Flight 447 in 2009 when it encountered thunderstorms over the Atlantic Ocean.

    “These new forecasts can help fill an important gap in our aviation system,” said Cathy Kessinger, lead researcher on the project at NCAR. “Pilots have had limited information about atmospheric conditions as they fly over the ocean, where conditions can be severe. By providing them with a picture of where significant storms will be during an eight-hour period, the system can contribute to both the safety and comfort of passengers on flights.”

    Predicting the turbulence associated with storms over oceans is somewhat harder than storms over land. Geostationary satellites in orbit are unable to see within clouds the way ground-based radar can. Pilots often have to choose between massive detours or flying directly through an area that may contain storms associated with windshear, icing conditions, lightning, hail, or severe turbulence.

    Currently, pilots on transoceanic flights get preflight briefings, with weather updates every four hours in the case of extreme storms. The planes used for such flights also have an onboard radar, which is of little use for planning while in-flight.

    “Turbulence is the leading cause of injuries in commercial aviation,” said John Haynes, Applied Sciences program manager at NASA Headquarters. “This prototype system is of crucial importance to pilots and is another demonstration of the practical benefit of NASA’s Earth observations.”

    (Image courtesy NASA/NCAR Research Applications Laboratory)

  • YouTube Shows Are About To Be Shown On Virgin America Flights

    YouTube announced that it is teaming up with Virgin America to bring a handful of shows to all of the airline’s flights in the U.S. and Mexico.

    Those shows would be: H+ The Digital Series, WIGS’ Blue, Geek & Sundry’s Written By a Kid, Crash Course and Barely Political’s The Key of Awesome.

    The shows will be on the flights by mid-December, according to YouTube.

    “Bringing YouTube aboard Virgin America is part of a larger effort to bring you more of the videos you love, at heights you’ve never seen them before,” said YouTube marketing manager Kate Berland. “Sample these great series on your flight, and then visit YouTube to enjoy the full seasons. New series and shows will become available every two months.”

    Here’s what you’re in for: