We nibbled our way through the research for a story you’ll find on the Runway Way Girl Network about how Seattle Chocolate and Alaska Airlines worked together to develop an exclusive chocolate bar flavor for upper tier flyers as an in-flight perk. And how that bar is now available to the rest of us. Take a look.
An aviation site reboot
If you like aviation history and anything related to airlines, airplanes or airports then, like me, you’ll enjoy visiting the rebooted website called The Airchive, which I profiled for The Points Guy site. Take a look at that story here.
Bonus miles for vaccine access rides
Getting an appointment for a COVID-19 vaccination is hard enough. But many people also have a hard time getting to and from the vaccination centers. So it is nice to see Delta Air Lines offering some bonus miles as a reward for those who donate cash to make rides available. Details that offer here.
Wouldn’t it be nice right now to be making your way to an airport and getting ready to visit a new city or an old favorite?
That time will come. For now, here are some tidbits from airports around the country.
Pay respects to civil rights icon John Lewis at ATL Airport
In April 2019, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) unveiled an exhibit in the domestic atrium titled “John Lewis – Good Trouble” to honor the longtime U.S. Congressman and civil rights icon.
Lewis died late last week, on July 17, and the exhibit has turned into a memorial tribute where travelers can stop and pay respects.
New Concourse E extension at PDX Airport
We shared the news last week about the opening of the new Concourse E extension at Portland International Airport (PDX).
Here’s a bit more about the project.
The extension brings the first new gates to PDX in more nearly 20 years and offers views of Mt. Hood and the Columbia Rivier.
The new concourse extension also features two aerial sculptures by Jacob Hashimoto featuring 11,000 paper kits and 450 different graphics representing Portland’s river, bridges, and neighborhoods.
Hashimoto’s PDX artwork may be familiar to travelers. He also has his work displayed at San Francisco International Airport (SFO), in the lobby of SFO Grand Hyatt.
A new concourse at Nashville International Airport too
Portland isn’t the airport that cut the ribbon on a new concourse last week.
On Friday, July 17, the first Southwest Airlines flight took off from Nashville International Airport’s (BNA) new $292 million Concourse D.
Statues are toppling and being taken down around the country because the historical figures they portray had a role in the oppression of others.
Included in this movement is the removal of the iconic Texas Ranger statue from the main lobby at Dallas Love Field Airport.
The 12-foot-tall bronze statue has been on display at the airport on and off since 1963 but was taken down in early June.
City officials decided to remove the statue. Their decision was prompted by published excerpts from a new book documenting the history of the Texas Rangers law enforcement agency and its connections to brutality and racism, the Dallas News reported.
But, Swanson says, some Texas Rangers were also responsible for “terrifying atrocities, including massacres on the Texas-Mexico border.”
The Texas Ranger statue that was at Dallas Love Field turned out to be especially problematic.
Sgt. E.J. “Jay” Banks, the Texas Ranger who served as the model for the statue at Dallas Love Field, was the commanding Ranger on the scene in 1956 when attempts were made to integrate the high school in Mansfield, near Dallas.
“But unlike state police in other Southern racial hotspots, the Rangers in Mansfield did not escort black students past howling mobs of white supremacists. They had been sent instead to keep the black children out of a white school,” Swanson writes, “A wire service photo showed [Banks] casually leaning against a tree outside Mansfield High. To his left, above the school’s entrance, was a dummy in blackface, hanging from a noose.”
What will happen to the statue – the spot it once filled at Dallas Love Field Airport?
According to an airport spokesman, “It has been placed into storage and the City of Dallas Office of Arts and Culture will lead the conversations and decisions as to what will happen to it next. There is no plan at this time to place anything else in that space.”
If you have been heeding the shelter-at-home advisories during this health crisis you may be organizing your photos and looking through scrapbooks from past trips.
Here’s something else to add your list: planning your next trip using the collections of vintage travel posters we came across while researching this fun story for AAA Washington as inspiration.
Here are some of the vintage travel poster images we enjoyed.
More than 1200 travel posters promoting global air travel are in the collection of the SFO Museum at San Francisco International Airport. Most are accessible online.