Since Aeroplan had their recent unannounced "award sale" I transferred some American Express miles to book an Aeroplan award to visit friends in Paris and Cairo. For the first leg I booked a BusinessFirst seat on Continental's United's 757-200 service from Newark (EWR) to Paris (CDG). After visiting the poorly appointed and spartan United Club near gate C71, I boarded my flight and settled into my seat. The flight was lightly loaded, surprisingly not a nonrev in sight, so I had the seat next ...

Happy Holidays to all, for a little fun and a little history I thought I'd look into the archives for some aviation history from past Christmas travel.

In 1975 a strike by United Airlines, the then largest U.S. carrier, and National Airlines left thousands stranded for the holidays. This pre-deregulation strike meant many were unable to travel as there were few other options. However the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) approved international-only Pan Am to fly some domestic ...

At the Travel Executive Summit luncheon during the Frequent Traveler Education Foundation series, a number of loyalty program managers spoke including:

Maya Leibman, President of AAdvantage Program, at American AirlinesJeff Foland, President of United Mileage PlusJeff Zidell, Vice President of Hyatt Gold PassportJeff Robertson, Vice President of Loyalty Programs, Delta Air LinesJoshua Berwitz, Vice President Membership Rewards, American Express

Randy ...

In remarks last Friday at the CERA Conference on energy, United CEO Jeff Smisek reiterated the high costs of fuel and government mandated taxes and fees that are a burden on the airline industry. Although the airlines have lost money for several years, which means their corporate tax obligations are negligible, the amount of government fees, taxes and surcharges on airline tickets can average 20% per ticket. Which brought Smisek to speak the title of this ...

Right now - aa.com, united.com, delta.com and other travel sites are unavailable for many and slow for others.  This week has been difficult for many online properties with the denial of service attacks on Visa and Mastercard and the Gawker password compromise that Mark mentioned. When the sites do come back up, please follow Mark's advice and monitor your account balances and make sure you have strong passwords on all your accounts.

Update 1: United is always on top of things: "We are investigating reports of united.com issues" I guess it's better than American and others that have said nothing yet.

During the United Airline's Open House and Family Day the airline demonstrated an emergency escape slide deployment. For those of you who missed it, here is a very short video showing the 747 door opening and slide inflation. It all happens pretty quickly - too bad they wouldn't let us go for a slide.