Flights

Singapore Airlines now flies non stop to Singapore from Seattle

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On Tuesday, Singapore Airlines (a codeshare partner of Alaska Airlines) celebrated the inaugural non-stop flight between Seattle Tacoma International Airport (SEA) and Singapore’s Changi Airport (SIN) with a lion dance and ribbon cutting at the gate and a water canon salute.

Seattle now becomes the fourth U.S. city to boast non-stop service to Singapore, joining Los Angeles, Newark and San Francisco.

During September, the flight will between Seattle and Singapore three times a week and expand to four flights a week in October.

The new SEA – SIN Singapore Airlines flight is the first-ever nonstop flight from SEA Airport to Southeast Asia. And, at 15-hours and 50-minutes, it is now also the longest longest nonstop flight from SEA airport.

The new flight is also the inspiration for a cool music video.

Singapore Airlines commissioned Seattle-based producer and musician Chong the Nomad to use an A350-900 aircraft – the same type being used for the SIA-SIN flight – as her musical instrument.

It is already a big hit!

Alaska Airlines adds 40 west coast flights for CES 2019

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Alaska Airlines joins the list of airlines adding extra flights to Las Vegas for CES 2019, the big electronics show.

Alaska Airlines plane

Alaska Airlines is adding 40 additional flights to Las Vegas from west coast tech hubs in Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Jose for people traveling to CES 2019 (the Consumer Electronics Show) next year.

The extra flights are scheduled from January 7 to January 12 and represent approximately 6,000 additional seats to and from these cities for that week.

While hotels will be very full and hotel room rates may will surely spike during the CES 2019 week, you don’t need to be attending the show to take advantage of these extra flights to and from Las Vegas.

But since these flights just got loaded into Alaska’s system, you might want to book them soon.

Other airlines are adding temporary flights for these days as well. American Airlines and Japan Airlines recently announces extra CES flights between Tokyo and Las Vegas.  Delta Air Lines, which has added CES flighs in the past, will likely announce this year’s batch shortly.

Heading to Las Vegas for CES 2019 or some other event? Be sure to make some time to visit the Neon Museum.

The museum tells the history of Las Vegas through classic, cast-off neon signs and is a great place to visit in the evening when many signs are lit.

Neon Museum Las Vegas

Neon Museum Las Vegas

Southwest Airlines nixes peanuts starting August 1

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Giving way to the concerns of passengers who have peanut allergies, Southwest Airlines has announced that, as of August 1, it will stop serving those tiny little packets of peanuts during flights.
“Peanuts forever will be part of Southwest’s history and DNA,” the airline said in a statement, “However, to ensure the best on-board experience for everyone, especially for customers with peanut-related allergies, we’ve made the difficult decision to discontinue serving peanuts on all flights beginning August 1.”
On its website, Southwest has told passengers with peanut allergies that if they made a note in their reservation, an effort would be made to make sure no peanuts would be served on their flights. But that didn’t always work out.
Other airlines stopped serving peanuts long ago, but for Southwest peanuts are part of the company’s branding. The airline is often “nuts” about this or that and has a quarterly newsletter called “In a Nutshell.”
Starting next month, the airline hopes passengers will pleased with the pretzels that continue to be served on flights, along with the other free snacks distributed on longer flights.

“Our ultimate goal is to create an environment where all customers—including those with peanut-related allergies—feel safe and welcome on every Southwest flight,” Southwest said in its statement.

Qantas surveying passengers about sleeping bunks and exercise zones

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You may remember the recent buzz about the design Airbus floated for putting sleeping berths in the cargo hold of an airplane as a way for economy class passengers to get some real rest during a long haul flight.

Qantas, which has challenged both Airbus and Boeing to build a plane it can use for ultra-long haul  flights from the east coast of Australia to London and New York, likes that idea and has it on a list of ‘blue sky’ features included in a survey the airline is sending out to about 12,000 of its frequent flyers.

The survey is part of the airline’s “Project Sunrise” research into ultra-long haul flying and on the Qantas list are such “Would you like?” features as:

  • A stretch/exercise zone on board
  • A communal bar, dining or self-service cafĂŠ zone
  • A work & study section including work stations
  • “Change and refresh” stations
  • A creche

A creche? To me that describes Christmas nativity scenes, which seemed like an odd item to include on a long-haul flight. But when I looked up that word I discovered creche is also a British word for a nursery, or day care center.

And on a long-haul flight – and even many short ones – I think most any traveler would vote for that!

 

 

Fun new flights!

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Three new flights kicked off over the weekend that I wish I’d been on!

 

Air France began nonstop service to Paris from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on Sunday, March 25.

The service adds to Delta’s flights between SEA and CDG and kicks off with three times a week service (Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays) on a Boeing 777-200 and increases to five times a week (adding Mondays and Tuesdays) during the summer season.

Air France first served Sea-Tac between 2007-2012, when that route was given taken over by Delta.

On Saturday, March 24, United Airlines kicked off seasonal nonstop daily service on a 787-8 Dreamliner between Denver and London Heathrow (LHR).

And over the weekend Qantas completed the inaugural – historic – flight for direct service between Perth, Australia and London. The 787-9 Dreamliner made the journey in ‘just’ 17 hours and 14 minutes.