Airlines: June 2009 Archives

Canada's The Globe and the Mail reports Air Canada planned to unveil in Vancouver next week its last 777, which sports a special Vancouver 2010 Olympic decal.

But plane spotters at Paine Field where Boeing manufactures the jet captured the aircraft with the special decal and posted it on the internet. You can view the nifty aircraft here and here.

"Our jaws kind of dropped," an Air Canada spokeswoman told the paper. "It was the first time most of us had seen it ourselves."

Air Canada may have been surprised, but they certainly understood images could leak out. "An airplane's a pretty big item."

As airlines constantly try to out-rival each other in passenger comfort, we never thought we would say they reached the bottom. But jetBlue and AirTran have, or at least in the wrong--but hilarious--category.

To promote the launch of its new New York-Los Angeles route (and that's LAX, not Ontario or Burbank) jetBlue teamed up with YouTubers to have them fly on the airline and make quirky videos en-route.

In "How to Make Yourself at Home on a Bi-Coastal Flight", Kevin Nalts unfurled a yoga mat in the aisle, washed his socks in the lavatory sink and then hung them on a clothesline across the galley, and went beyond the wildest faux pas you could imagine.



Similarly, Mark Malkoff earlier this month embarked on a 30-day quest with AirTran to supposedly rid himself of his "fear of flying". (But the Colbert Report staffer undertook a similar project last January living in Ikea, and AirTran is using the occasion to promote its plan to equip its entire fleet with Gogo wifi by the end of the summer, as Brett Snyder reports.) In this episode, Mark asks passengers how he smells.




You can also watch Mark receive a shower courtesy of the airport fire department, unfurl a roll of toilet paper down the aisle from the lavatory toilet and then press flush, and many other shenanigans.

These stunts may not involve lie-flat seats or in-flight wifi, but who ever knew getting comfortable could be so much fun?

A call out to readers: have you been on any of these flights, or even regular flights where your seat neighbour got a little too comfortable?