United Airlines is now flying an 18-hour flight between Los Angeles and Singapore that’s now the longest regularly scheduled route ever flown by a U.S. airline and the world’s longest by flying time.
The Chicago-based carrier officially claimed that late Friday, when it launched a non-stop service on the 8,700-mile route between Los Angeles and Singapore. The flight is anticipated to take nearly 18 hours.
The route is scheduled to run from Los Angeles International Airport to Singapore’s Changi Airport. The distance is about 8,700 miles which are about 7,560 nautical miles. More »
An Orange County, California man claims American Airlines almost kicked him off because he weighs a few more pounds.
Chris Shelley, a retired marine, said he is outraged by the way he was treated after another passenger complained that he was too fat for his seat.
Shelley says he flies more than 100,000 miles every year. The Huntington Beach engineer said his nightmare began shortly after he boarded an American Airlines flight from Dallas to Orange County last Friday. When an elderly petite woman sat in the aisle seat next to him, he noticed she was not happy that Shelley was spilling into her own upholstered personal space. She “got up and left and went towards the front of the aircraft.” Shelley was approached by “a young gentleman” in a vest with an American Airlines emblem on it.
Shelley was shoked when the airline employee told him to gather his personal belongings and leave the plane with no explanation other than “anyone two inches over the seat can’t sit in the aircraft”. Shelley convinced the employee to ask the elderly woman if she would switch seats with someone. The woman agreed and then he was able to reboard the plane and return to his seat.
“The worst part”, according to Shelley, was that he was treated as “criminal.” Not only a criminal but a “fat criminal.”
American Airlines sent two apology emails and Ross Feinstein, a company spokesperson said that the airline has launched an investigation.
American Airlines computer systems were restored and the ground stop has been lifted Thursday after earlier “technical issues” at several airports across the country, the airline said.
American Airlines flights to and from Chicago, Dallas and Miami have been temporarily grounded because of an apparent glitch in one of the carrier’s computer systems and that prevented passengers from checking in. The computer systems were fixed after less than two hours. More »
Uzbekistan national carrier announced on its website Friday that the airline will be weighing its passengers along with their luggage before they step on the plane.
The passengers will be asked to proceed through a special ‘weighing machine’ placed at the departure gate zone in order to determine each traveler’s average weight along with their hand baggage. The procedure is part of ‘flight safety’ requirements introduced by the International Air Transport Association, the carrier said.
It appears the procedure is strictly for research purposes. The company said that the individual passengers’ weights would not be disclosed and ‘full confidentiality of results is guaranteed. Instead, the weighing machine will only categorize passengers by sex and into adult and child groups.
All aircrafts have total weight limits which cannot be exceeded for safety reasons. However, Uzbekistan Airways has not listed a weight limit for any individual passenger yet. The company doesn’t give any details about what action, if any, would be taken if the total weight of the passengers and their luggage exceeded the limit.
Uzbekistan national carrier is not the first to put passengers on the scale before boarding. In 2013, Samoa Air became the world’s first airline to charge passengers different fares based on their weight. During the procedure, the travelers are weighed their luggage at the departure gate and pay a fixed price per pound for their seat. Officials from the company claim that this helps manage the onboard weight effectively and enable to improve the flight cost-effectiveness.
Now if you could please step on the scale, we need to check your weight.
Do you sometimes have to take your wallet out of your pocket, when flying, to spare the discomfort caused by the hard cushion? Or the empty seat beside you seems as one of life’s great little rewards, like finding a forgotten $20 in the pocket of an old coat? Then get ready to feel more and more frequently stuck in the seat.
In recent years, the airlines are reducing the width of their seats, increasing the number of the seats and trimming the aisles by a few inches which translate into added revenue.
Currently, the average width for a first class seat on a Boeing 777 More »