Posts with the tag ‘Americana’


Quest For More From CNN From MH-370

March 6, 2016

Full disclosure: The Crash Detectives, my own book on the mysterious disappearance of Malaysia Flight 370, will be published by Penguin in September. This may have colored my perception of Richard Quest’s new book, The Vanishing of Flight 370. Then again, maybe it really is a rehash of CNN’s original undisciplined coverage. Quest, CNN’s business correspondent, is well known for his out-sized personality and his “say anything” interview style. But in the book he has produced for Penguin Berkley and timed to the second anniversary of the disappearance of Malaysia 370, all his insouciant charm is gone. Without that, Quest’s demonstrated ego wears thin long… Read More…


Nick Tramontano; An Aviator’s Legacy of Kindness

February 12, 2016

  Consider this quote from Irish aviation executive Willie Walsh talking about the boss of a competing airline, Virgin’s Richard Branson. “I don’t like him, I don’t admire him, I don’t buy his bullshit.” Or consider Michael O’Leary of Ireland’s Ryanair, “I don’t give a shit if no one likes me. I’m not a cloud bunny or an aerosexual. I don’t like aeroplanes. I never wanted to be a pilot like those other platoons of goons who populate the airline industry.” The world of aviation is full of arrogant, combative individuals who may be providing a service to a world growing ever more reliant on air… Read More…


Third World Bathrooms in OneWorld Terminal

January 18, 2016

Warning to readers:  Photos of toilets appear in this post. Travelers at the airport hail from many countries and speak many languages but women arriving on oneworld flights into New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport have one word for the condition of the bathrooms in Terminal 8, “Ewwww.” Kisha Burgos stopped at the bathroom in the baggage claim area and was shocked to see paper-strewn floors, filthy toilets and empty and broken paper dispensers in the stalls. “It’s bad,” she told me comparing it to the airports she visited in Bangkok, Vietnam and Laos on her recent five-week trip. “Everything was really clean,” she said of the bathrooms in… Read More…


Aviation Year in Review Has a Star Wars Sci-Fi Feel

December 29, 2015

Star Wars dominated the end-of-the-year entertainment news. Harrison Ford, the ageless superstar most associated with the ageless film franchise also arrives on my list of top aviation news stories as I wrap up the year with a look back at 2015. It was March (and the movie was already in the can) when Ford, a pilot for nearly a quarter century, lost the engine on his Ryan Aeronautical ST3KR, shortly after takeoff from Santa Monica Airport. He crash landed on a golf course about 800 feet from the airfield. The NTSB determined a carburetor malfunction allowed too much fuel to flow into the engine causing… Read More…


Happy Birthday from Syria and Other Places in a Troubled World

December 19, 2015

One of my Facebook messages today Not long after my eyes opened this morning I enjoyed reading some of the early birthday greetings posted on my Facebook page. (Don’t judge me.) It is heartwarming to be remembered by friends and family of course. Then I noticed something else; the remarkable number of countries from which those greetings came. I counted eleven even before 9:00 o’clock. My host family during my 2006 stay in Syria, my daughter’s former boyfriend in New Zealand, an au pair from Spain, a tour guide from Morocco, a pre-teen acquaintance from Australia, a septuagenarian from Japan, business associates from Norway, Italy… Read More…


Merry Christmas for U.S. Airlines With Record Profits in 2015

December 10, 2015

>US Carrier profitability takes off It will be a merry end of the year for North American airlines which will earn nearly $20 billion in profits in 2015, according to numbers forecast today by the International Air Transport Association.  That’s more than half of the $33 billion profit expected to be generated by the world’s passenger carriers for the year about to come to a close. “North American airlines are way out ahead of the pack and producing good operating margins,” said Brian Pearce economist for the trade association in a presentation to journalists in Geneva. But in an industry more comfortable with and more… Read More…


Growth, Profitability and Timing Lifts Airline Industry

June 9, 2015

Tyler addresses the executives Photo by IATA Writing from Miami – It seems strange to me that under the guidance of the soft spoken and urbane Tony Tyler, the airline industry should be experiencing its strongest growth and profitability but there you have it. Just four years after the former chief of the International Air Transport Association, Giovanni Bisignani nominated himself the best director general of the association ever in the pages of his book, Shaking the Skies, in waltzes his polar opposite and actually sees much of  Bisignani’s big wish list getting accomplished. Yes, it’s a happy group of global airline bosses here in Miami… Read More…


Global News Events Play Out on World’s Runways

June 8, 2015

Writing from Miami — If you want to see the down-to-earth impact of world events there’s no better place to be than Miami this week where the leaders of aviation are assembled for the International Air Transport Association‘s annual meeting. Like the wheels of an airliner touching down on the runway, the rubber meets the road on issues like civil war, international monetary policy and the technology boom. Each news event adds another multi-pronged piece to the 3 dimensional puzzle that one airline might incorporate and use to grow while another struggles to find a way to work around it. Executives arrive at a Boeing… Read More…


Drive in the Country or Tumble Through the Sky; Acrobatic Pilot Rob Holland’s Flying Lessons

May 15, 2015

I made the one hour drive on the beautiful back roads of New England, rounding the curves and ascending the hills. Distracted by spring in full bloom, I struggled to concentrate on the road ahead. By the time I arrived at Westfield Municipal Airport and introduced myself to acrobatic pilot Rob Holland I was exhausted and we had yet to fly. That’s what sustained focus will do to you. I’d been invited to go up with Rob during a practice session for this weekend’s Great New England Air Show in Western Massachusetts and to write about the experience for a chain of Connecticut newspapers. We… Read More…


Airline Shortcomings as an Indicator of Progress

February 27, 2015

Two U.S. airlines made headlines on Wednesday; Dallas based-Southwest Airlines generated ink when it reported to the Federal Aviation Administration that it failed to do required rudder inspections on 128 of its Boeing 737s. Meantime at the Chicago Headquarters of United, public relations executives were trying to slow heavy media breathing over a letter sent by the airline’s safety and operations honchos to United pilots, warning them to be careful up there. Should the traveling public be concerned? When I was asked about this by Ismat Sarah Mangla a reporter with the International Business Times, I told her while the public usually focuses on deadly… Read More…


Enter to Win

Want to receive some free swag from Christine? Sign up for the mailing list!