Travel season is here, and it's not just humans that will be flying, pets will be roaming the skies, too! To find out which airline will best suit your pet travel budget, read on for a short list below that states the airline, and the fee for cabin and checked pets. Read on to see how the prices compare.
Sir Richard Branson unveiled the brand new Virgin America T2 terminal at SFO yesterday, after a first-of-its-kind simultaneous flight of the Airbus A320, WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo over the San Francisco coastline. The new eco-friendly terminal is LEED Gold-certified and sustainable, which is a first in the US. Not only earth conscious, the terminal looks pretty sexy, too. Check out images of the new terminal, find out why tech-savvy travelers will love it, and what other airlines can learn from the new addition.
With Spring break around the corner and Summer on its heels, frequent jet-setters and seldom fliers alike should know why they're spending bigger bucks on airfare this vacation season. It's not just because the airlines want to capitalize on Summer travelers; airlines need to offset rising oil prices, which account for 40 percent of their costs. Even though there have been several airfare hikes this year, experts and executives believe fliers will keep paying despite increasing prices, according to The New York Times. Well, this should get you savvy readers thinking: where's the limit? To make an informed decision as to if that trip to Disneyland is worth it, here's a roundup of airfare hikes and other interesting tidbits about your go-to carriers.
To see how much the airlines will profit despite sky-rocketing oil prices and higher costs to their patrons, read on.
Flying can be a major pain in the rear — delays, oversold seats, waiting standby, and canceled flights can really put a damper on vacations and business travel. But the good news is, airlines seem to be getting hip to customers' wants and needs. Check out these five ways airlines are making it even easier to fly.
As an answer to the frustrations of travelers who can't redeem miles for the flights they want, airlines are becoming more creative with their frequent flier programs. The Wall Street Journal listed some examples that some airlines are offering their customers in exchange for miles:
Would you want any of these items or would you rather get free flights?
I don't know about you, but when I know I'm going on a trip, I check several travel sites multiple times a day, almost to a point of obsessiveness. And when I finally find a ticket with a great price, I practically glow with a sense of achievement. After my purchase, I still keep going back to travel sites just to see how much the prices rise, and every time I see them become more expensive, I quietly congratulate myself on my savvy purchase.
For those of you who have the same compulsion, check out these tips from the Wall Street Journal on when to buy tickets.
Got a cost-saving travel tip? Join our Savvy Travel Tips group and share your expertise!
Just in time for the busy holiday travel season, Southwest Airlines has announced pricing for its in-flight WiFi program. With 32 planes ready for your browsing pleasure (and 28 more being added by the end of the year), Southwest will offer WiFi for an introductory rate of just $5 for any flight on any device (which means pricing will most likely go up eventually). While other airlines are still playing catch-up to the in-flight WiFi trend, this low pricing is a big relief for frequent fliers, and family members that will trek cross-country for holiday festivities.
So how will you know if you've reserved a seat on a WiFi-enabled plane? Find out, and learn about some freebies Southwest is providing after the break.
I'm telling you, if you want to make it with the in crowd on Twitter, pal up with the wallet-friendly airlines like @JetBlue and @SouthwestAir. These budget airlines are the ones with the most friends on the social networking platform among all the US airlines. According to data from this morning, JetBlue dominates the Twitter market with about 1.6 million followers. Meanwhile, Southwest comes in second with around one million followers. Even though @VirginAmerica, a budget airline under the umbrella brand of Virgin, is more limited in the locations they fly to, the airline still ranks third in terms of Twitter friends.
To find out what it means for airlines to be popular on Twitter, read on.
The suggestive taglines for travel ads are apparently making a comeback, notes a WSJ blog. One of Air France's latest print ads shows a model with an Air France logo pulling on her corset string, which was already unraveling. Another example is Cathay Pacific — some of the Hong Kong airline's real-life stewardesses were featured on the ads and were outfitted in revealing outfits in several shots. One of the Cathay's stewardesses was quoted in the ads saying, "I just like to listen more than talk."
On a more viral front, the YouTube video of Air Cebu stewardesses breaking out into a music-video-type dance on the plane seemed to be a roaring success. I'm not quite feeling these ads (granted I'm probably not their target demographic), but I'm wondering if you agree with me on this. Are these sexy advertising campaigns a hit or miss?
Photo courtesy of Air France
Conveniently generating a ton of publicity right before its IPO (when a firm starts selling shares of its company to the public), Cebu Air pulls a promotional stunt, in which the YouTube videos of the event went viral. The airline's flight attendants turned a boring safety instruction session into something from an MTV music video (or maybe even better).
Before you start judging the sexist implications of the stunt, Cebu Air sprung out an all-male act in response to the negativity. I watched the video of the dancing male stewards, and they look a little awkward. Definitely loses a bit of the "wow" factor I saw in the hot female stewardesses. Take a look at the video below to see what I mean!
