NASA’s Earth Observatory “Similar in shape to the traditional metropolis made up of a central city core and its commuter-linked suburbs, the Aerotropolis consists of an airport city core and outlying corridors and clusters of aviation-linked businesses.” That’s University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill professor John D. Kasarda writing…
FareCompare, with its HQ at the intersection of Preston and Frankfurt roads, gets a profile in Condé Nast’s troubled Portfolio today, and the low-airfare-finding Web site is touted as oh-so-much more: FareCompare’s most recent incarnation has been its most unexpected. It’s not just offering a reliable way to save money…
This morning, American Airlines issued a press release announcing its partnership with Illinois-based AirCell, which promises broadband Interwebs access on commercial airline flights. Says AirCell on its Web site, the service would be available on “personal Wi-Fi devices including laptops, 802.11 a/b/g -equipped devices, and mobile handheld devices,” but not…
For frequent flyers who hate peanuts and don’t buy their toiletries in containers of four ounces or less, there’s hope yet: Later this month, a 13-foot-wide machine will be installed in Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport’s Terminal A, near Gate 29. It’s offered by a company called Shop24, and it will…
From Fort Worth’s Robert McKee (via Dallas Morning Views’ Rod Dreher) comes this seven-minute video — a short film, really, to which I give two thumbs up — documenting his seven-hour sit on the the JFK Airport tarmac two days back. Seems Delta just didn’t want to get McKee and…
Is it us, or does Russ Berger looks a little like The Ticket’s Norm Hitzges? Russ Berger owns a company in Addison well known for its “acoustical and architectural design for recording studios and broadcast facilities,” among them the tony joints belonging to NFL Films, Whitney Houston, Billy Graham, National…
Having just flown through Chicago O’Hare International earlier this week, where the security lines were a few thou deep and the food tasted like foot and the vibe was generally Third World, I could not agree more with Salon’s assessment today that the joint’s among of the world’s worst airports…
As our two previous items concerning furloughed American Airlines flight attendants are still receiving plenty of comments, we thought it only fair to mention AA today announced it is sending recall notices to 200 flight attendants “to address projected attrition through the balance of the year,” says this press release…
Early last week we posted a short item on the ongoing tiff between former TWA flight attendants and American Airlines. It has since generated 61 comments and counting, one of which came from an American Airlines spokesperson defending his company’s position. Who knew that Unfair Park is the place where…
Whenever you get crap service on American Airlines, just remember, Gerard Arpey made $6.6 million — this week. Gerard Arpey, boss man over at American Airlines, got $5.4 million last year — and, oh, another bonus worth $6.6 million this week. So reports the Associated Press today — as well…
Paula Abdul doesn’t like Southwest Airlines. Allegedly. Very allegedly. Some Southwest Airlines notes this morning, as I prep for an afternoon flight to Austin: Says here that CreditSights analyst Roger King figures now would be as good a time as any for the Dallas-based airline to get involved in a…
Southwest Airlines, as always, had the lowest consumer complaint rate (0.18 per 100,000 passengers, neat) of all the major airlines in 2006. Yet it came in at only No. 5 on the Air Quality Rating 2007 report, issued today by Brent D. Bowen of the University of Nebraska at Omaha…
Big story yesterday about a Boston couple who was booted off a flight because their 3-year-old was throwing a tantrum and refused to be buckled in to her seat. Fair enough, considering that you’ve got another 115 or so passengers waiting to take off. The story ran on KDFW-Channel 4,…
Though The Wall Street Journal reports this morning that the board of Aussie airline Qantas unanimously rubber-stamped an $8.7 billion buyout led by Fort Worth-based Texas Pacific Group and Australia’s Allco Equity Partners Ltd., BusinessWeek notes that Qantas later declared “the terms of the proposal are not acceptable.” The deal…
When you see this man carrying his blade on to your AA flight, just let him through. He’s cool. Turns out, you can take a four-foot sword on an American Airlines plane flying from Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport to Los Angeles. Who knew? Apparently, no one till Annie Jacobsen of…
Texas Pacific Group, the Fort Worth-based private capital firm ($20 billion worth) with arms in San Francisco and London, has made a roughly $8.5 billion takeover move for Aussie Qantas Airways in tandem with the Australian merchant bank Macquaried Bank, Ltd., as reported in the Wall Street Journal. The offer…
If American Airlines had its flight attendants wear the old Braniff uniforms, we’d be more forgiving of its service. There’s an Associated Press story that moved this afternoon about airline museums and how poorly they do. In the case of, oh, Delta Airlines, people can’t even get into its museum…
For a few weeks, American Airlines has been waging a campaign to land nonstop daily service from Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport to Beijing, China, that would begin March 25, 2007. They’re serious about this–even got the Web site to prove it. Problem is, the U.S. Department of Transportation is only…
This is not a scene from the air traffic control tower at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. Not yet, anyway. Keep this in mind next time you fly: The Federal Aviation Administration is getting rid of air traffic controllers–by creating salary caps for vets, offering lower pay to rookies, mandating a…
Life was so much easier when Braniff was flying out of Love Field. Remember its “Terminal of the Future,” pictured here? Yeah, that worked out well. Turns out some folks in the Justice Department aren’t the only ones finding “Problems with the New Wright Amendment Deal” reached by the Dallas…
Over the weekend, I accompanied the missus to Chicago for her family reunion, which essentially consisted of a Saturday-night dinner at the famous Gibsons steakhouse (Sinatra sang there, way back when). Guess we got placed at the Texas table: Joining us were three distant relatives–a middle-aged husband and wife named…
Steven Pearlstein, a business columnist at The Washington Post, has an outsiders’ take on the Wright Amendment compromise, which Mayor Laura touts as her legacy and some folks at the Justice Department insist is bad for business. Pearlstein writes that the compromise reached by mayors Laura Miller and Mike Moncrief…
