Where do you like sitting on an airplane? At the very front or the very back? At a window or an aisle? According to research by British Airways, the most popular seats on a Boeing 747 are 51B/51C, 52B/52C, 51H/51J and 52 H/52J. That’s all the way in the back of the plane. More »
If airlines were already keen to keep your phone switched off, things could soon get even more militant. According to a talk by Hugo Teso at the Hack In The Box security conference, it’s possible to hack an entire plane using an Android smartphone. Gulp. More »
It’s widely acknowledged that the purpose of airport security isn’t to protect passengers from harm—it’s to try and stop major in-flight attacks which take down the plane. That doesn’t stop airports imposing plenty of silly security rules—but a report in Dutch newspaper Nu reveals just how easy it is to create dangerous tools from airport duty-free stores regardless. More »
When you’re flying anywhere you can pretty much turn the whole day into a black hole. The airport/in-flight wifi wasn’t working. We sat at the gate for an hour. We were in a holding pattern. It’s great. But sometimes, sometimes you actually want to get where you’re going. More »
People who are considered medically to be obese have always had issues when it came to air travel as nobody wants to sit near you and the airlines tend to treat you terribly just because of your weight. It looks as though things aren’t going to get any easier for those of you who are carrying a bit of extra personal baggage as Somoa Air is introducing a pricing policy that charges its passengers by their body weight.
A passenger would be required to not only enter the weight of their baggage, but for themselves as well at the time of booking. The combined weight will be used to calculate the price of the ticket, with its values being verified at the airport by weighing customers and their bags. The reason for the introduction of this new policy is due the Samoa Air’s fleet of aircrafts largely being made up of 12-seater aircrafts, which means the passengers and their bags need to be factored in to have a safe takeoff. It also doesn’t help that Samoans are known to carry a few extra pounds.
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Auto Manufacturers Developing Cars With Biometric Sensors, “Who’s Your Daddy” truck is a mobile paternity test lab, 
Bad news for those carrying a few extra pounds: Samoa Air has become the world’s first airline to introduce a pricing policy which charges passengers by body weight. Time to diet. More »
There’s nothing quite as magical as surfing the Interwebs from cruising altitude, and now you can add JetBlue to the list of airlines that will let you do it. A few years behind everyone else, mind you. The company’s new, punny service “Fly-Fi” will be showing up in planes later this year. More »
While Google Flight Search covers the far corners of the Earth, many of the people who live in those corners haven’t had a similar option to explore the world of air travel. Google is taking at least a small step toward ending that discrepancy with a fresh expansion to Europe. Jetsetters in France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and the UK can now find flights to and from many parts of the world, with prices and languages tailored to their home countries. As before, travelers can both see real-time prices, gauge the best (read: cheapest) time to book a vacation and filter flights through criteria like prices, timing and WiFi. There’s no surprises for locals if they’ve had the luxury of using Flight Search before — we just wish we’d had access in time for our recent trip to Barcelona.
Filed under: Transportation, Internet, Google
Via: Phandroid
Source: ITA Software by Google
The last we heard in the saga of the grounded 787 Dreamliner came last month, when Boeing announced that it had developed a “permanent” fix to the airliner’s battery fire issues. Today, the FAA issued its approval of the company’s certification plan, allowing Boeing to begin testing its proposed battery improvements. Boeing’s fix includes redesigned internal batteries, better insulation and new venting system, and the FAA has given the go-ahead for testing prototype versions of the setup on two aircraft. The agency originally cleared Boeing for limited testing and ferrying of 787s last month, but completing the FAA certification program is key for the company returning to commercial service. Don’t get set on a first-class ticket to Japan just yet, though; these things take time.
Filed under: Transportation
Via: The Verge
Source: FAA
There once was a Golden Age Of Flying. You didn’t have to queue up, strip down, and surrender your beverage to the Goon Squad. Meals were served on real plates instead of sad, soggy cardboard boxes. The act of traveling itself was a pleasant part of the journey—instead of a necessary act of mass-transit. These conveniences still exist for the very rich, but there was a time when all of us had access to a fantastic world in the sky. That world is never coming back, but it’s still nice to look back and fondly remember. More »
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