Singapore Airlines cancels world's longest flight

The world’s longest commercial flight is to be no more. Singapore Airlines’ nonstop flight between Singapore and Newark is being cancelled. A slightly shorter route between Singapore and Los Angeles is also being cancelled.

The Singapore-Newark route covers a distance of about 9,500 miles, the longest route in the world. Meanwhile, the Singapore-Los Angeles route covers 8,000 miles and takes 18 hours and 30 minutes and holds the record for duration. These two routes have been flown on Airbus A340-500s, which are known to be gas guzzlers. Singapore Air discovered the only way to make these flights profitable was to reconfigure the planes to seat 98 business class seats for $8,000 roundtrip. With that being said, it was clear that the best option for the airline was to discontinue these 2 flights.

The new title for longest route will now be held by Qantas for their route between Sydney and Dallas, which is an 8,500 mile flight. The flight with the longest duration will now be held by Delta’s flight between Johannesburg and Atlanta, which is about a 17 hour flight.

Singapore Air will continue to serve flights to New York on its existing Airbus A380 routes, although these connect in Frankfurt. The same goes for flights between LA and Singapore, with a connection in Tokyo.

 

TSA begins removing X-ray scanners from some major airports

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has started removing X-ray body scanners from major airports. The decision is said to have been based purely on speeding up the check-in process and not because of safety concerns.

X-ray scanners have been a concern for travelers for quite some time. The scanners emit a small dose of ionizing radiation, which at higher levels has been linked to cancer. Passengers have also known to be uncomfortable with the fact that the scanners produced blurred pictures of passengers’ naked bodies. Each picture must be reviewed by a TSA officer, which slows down security lines.

The alternative to the X-ray scanner is the millimeter-wave scanner. These machines rely on low-energy radio waves. Instead of creating a picture, a computer algorithm looks for anomalies and depicts them as a yellow box on a cartoon figure. The millimeter-wave scanner is also highly effective at finding explosives.

One drawback to the millimeter-wave scanner is the high false-alarm rate. Studies in Europe and Australia have found the false-alarm rate to range between 23% and 54%, compared to the reported 5% false-alarm rate for the X-ray scanner. At any rate, the millimeter-wave scanners appear to be very effective and are more time efficient than the X-ray scanner. There are also no known DNA damaging or cancer causing mechanisms in these types of waves.

Although TSA has begun moving the X-ray scanners from major airports to smaller, less crowded airports, that does not mean they are being phased out completely. The X-ray scanners are still in place at a few major US airports. Furthermore, TSA has recently awarded three companies potential contracts for the next generation of body scanners. Of those three companies, one uses the X-ray technology in their scanner. Have we seen the beginning of the end of the dreaded X-ray scanners? Only time will tell.

Flying Egypt Airlines?

If you are thinking about flying Egypt Air any time soon, you may want to weigh all your options before you book that ticket.

Being a Star Alliance carrier, I was very surprised with the provided service on Egypt Air. Let’s start with food and drinks. The food provided tasted as if it had been left out in the sun for days and was not very appetizing. Egypt Air is also a dry airline, so if you are hoping to indulge in a midflight drink you will be out of luck.

With their food and drinks services leaving much to be desired, you would think they would make up for this with comfort and other amenities. Unfortunately, this was not the case. The seats were very outdated and not very comfortable (keep in mind I was sitting in Business Class, not economy!). The Club Lounge had cockroaches crawling around and the bathrooms were also quite dirty. Furthermore, they even have a very poor on-time arrival rate compared to most other airlines.

Are you sitting there wondering how Egypt Air can continue to fill flights with this kind of service, or lack thereof? There is one category which helps them compete with other airlines: price. They can offer a flight up to 65% cheaper than any other Star Alliance carrier for the same route.

So next time you are considering an Egypt Air flight, you might want to take these things into consideration. What is truly important to you? If it is finding the cheapest price then Egypt Airlines may be right for you. If comfort, service, amenities, and arriving on time are high on your importance list then you may want to think carefully about your decision.

Woes continue for American Airlines

These are troubled times for American Airlines. After a difficult September, American Airlines’ parent company, AMR Corp, posted a $238 million loss for the quarter.

American Airlines suffered massive delays and cancellations in September due to an issue they blamed on pilots. With that delay starting to clear up, American now has another issue to deal with. They are now inspecting 47 Boeing 757 airplanes to check for loose seats. On two separate American Airline flights, passenger seats came loose midflight. This has lead to over 21,000 delayed flights and more than 1,300 flights cancelled all together.

This recent string of woes for the airline will continue, as they have already announced a reduced flight schedule by 1% through November. They also boasted an anemic 59% on-time arrival rate for September. Customers are definitely taking notice, as the number of passengers flying American Airlines fell 4% in September. Business travelers are especially weary of flying American. With the uncertainty over cancellations and delays, business travelers simply cannot take the risk of flying American and having it possibly affect their business.

With all of the current problems American is having, they are working hard on solutions to try to win back customers. It won’t be easy but they are finally starting to move in the right direction. They have at least improved on-time arrival rates through October, although they still trail most of the major airlines in that category.  American needs to do much more if it wants to turn its misfortunes around.

Only time will tell if American Airlines can turn this around and win back customers, but they still have a long way to go.

Are you falling victim to exorbitant airline name change fees?

Next time you book a flight you might want to double or even triple check that all your personal info is correct. Carriers policies’ on name changes for tickets can be very strict and can lead to very costly fees to change them.

In the past, minor errors could be corrected (although not always very easily) but the industry standard has been that major alterations require a fee or even an entirely new ticket (big bucks for the airlines!).

 Earlier this year, a new rule was passed by the U.S. Transportation Department that allows customers to cancel their airline reservation within 24 hours of making it. This rule has allowed for most ticketing errors to be fixed and has taken away a big revenue source from the airlines.

However, outside of that 24 hour span, airline rules on changes are still vague and/or restrictive. Some airlines say no name changes are permitted while others advise travelers to go to the ticket counter at the airport to try to have their ticket changed. Allegiant is the only domestic airline that clearly allows for name changes, albeit for a $50 fee.

A simple way to make sure you do not encounter this problem is to use a U.S. travel agency like POTHOS. We do not outsource our call centers to foreign countries. This provides our customers with a much better communication platform. We also email drafts to catch any misspellings or other errors. Lastly, we can provide far better service than online ticketing agencies, where it might be very difficult to contact an agent to help with any issues.

Regardless of how your airline tickets are booked, you should always verify that all of your info is correct on your ticket. If you don’t, there is a good chance the airlines will be profiting on this mistake.

Wheeling and Dealing

Looking for ways to cut to the front of airport security lines? Apparently you’re not the only one.

Airport workers say they are seeing an increased amount of travelers abusing the complimentary wheelchairs provided at airports. It has even gotten to the point that airport workers expect increased wheelchair requests whenever they see security lines that are especially long.

Wheelchair passengers go through an expedited security screening and get to board the plane first, so maybe it should be of no surprise that there are a few unsavory characters who try to take advantage of this.

Airports are required by law to accommodate disabled travelers free of charge. However, there is no requirement for passengers to prove their disability when requesting a wheelchair. Which begs the question, should airports start to charge or require proof of disability for wheelchairs?

I think it is safe to say that requiring proof of disability (much like a handicap parking placard) would weed out most of the abusers of this service and leave the wheelchairs for those who are truly in need of them!

Defrocked Priest Employed by TSA

It has recently come to light that the TSA in Philadelphia had hired a priest that had been shunned from the church for allegations of child abuse.   Back in 2002 Thomas Harkins was hired with the TSA post 9/11 in a mass hiring along with 50,000 others.  Some of the employees including Harkins were hired without a proper background screening. 

In 2003 the church had actually sent a letter to his new employer warning them that he had been accused of abusing two girls and had been treated for pedophilia.  Despite this, Harkins is still employed by the TSA to this day.      

I don’t really care for the invasive groping, but I will put up with it any day over the suspect cancer causing back scatter and millimeter wave devices any day.