On Monday, journalists gathered at Hawaiian Airlines’ Honolulu headquarters for the carrier’s first global media day and the announcement that the airline is adding lie-flat seats to the premium cabins on its fleet of A330 aircraft.
During the event, refreshments were laid out for the attendees. And in with the coffee, water, fruit and trail mix were boxes filled with packs of Doublemint gum.
The gum seemed like an odd offering until it was explained that last November, when Hawaiian Airlines was celebrating the 85th anniversary of interisland passenger service, Doublemint gum was part of the festivities.
The reason: back in 1929, the first inflight amenity offered to passengers was a stick of Wrigley’s gum to help relieve ear pressure.
Hawaiian Airlines revived that tradition during its anniversary day celebration on November 11, 2015 by once again handing out Wrigley’s Doublemint gum to passengers (along with some other goodies) to the more than 12,000 passengers taking neighbor island flights that day.
But not all the gum Wrigley’s sent to Hawaiian Airlines for the celebration was used.
Not by a longshot. Which is why Doublemint gum is now there on the refreshment table at a lot of Hawaiian Airlines events.
Lufthansa has put together an exhibition of ‘then and now’ photos bundled under the title “Service is our tradition” and on view in Terminal 2 at Munich Airport until the end of August.
The images show the development of Lufthansa from 1955 to today and show historical images of the cabin, the cockpit and aircraft juxtaposed with similarly posed scenes from today.
Here are few samples:
Not going to Munich Airport anytime soon? You can see all the photos from the exhibition here.
United Air Lines stewardess uniform 1957–1958, courtesy SFO Museum
If you happen to be at San Francisco International Airport on August 20th, 2013, make your way over to the library at the Louis Turpen Aviation Museum in the International Terminal for Flight Attendant Celebration Day.
The event will run from 10 am until 3 pm and celebrate the history of flight attendants with talks, short subject films and commemorations, along with complimentary refreshments and free validated parking.
The 12 hour flight started off with a fun event that included a chance for many guests (not me, though) to get their pictures taken with one of the engines on the plane.
This group of specially chosen crew members was as excited as the invited guests to be on the delivery flight of Cathay Pacific’s newest Boeing 777-300ER plane going from the Boeing factory to Hong Kong on Tuesday, August 28, 2012.
I’ve got two days to spend in Hong Kong before heading home. Geeky, I know, but I spent one of those days touring the public side of Hong Kong International Airport and visiting Cathay City, the Cathay Pacific headquarters located near the airport.
My tour guide at Cathay City was Agnes Yeung, who was kind enough to take me through the small, on-site Cathay Pacific History Museum, which can be visited by school groups and other invited guests but is, unfortunately, not open to the general public.
The Cathay Pacific Museum at Cathy City includes a display documenting the changes in the airline’s flight attendant uniforms
The Cathay Pacific museum entrance is set up to look like the former Hong Kong airport, known as Kai Tak, which was located right in the city and was replace with a new airport in 1998.
I didn’t get a chance to visit the Headland Hotel, a 501 room property right near the airport reserved exclusively for airline crew members and other Cathay Pacific personnel. Yeung said the hotel is usually booked at “more than 100% capacity,” and I thought for a moment there was a breakdown in translation. But she explained that because crew members are arriving from and leaving for flights at all hours of the day and night, and because many crew members are only there to rest for a short time, the hotel can indeed be operated at more than 100% capacity.
Next up: some of the amenities at Hong Kong International Airport, including a visit to the “Dream Come True” center, where kids test out what it’s like to work as a pilot, a flight attendant, a surgeon, a police officer and several other jobs; the real story of that much-talked about IMAX movie theater at the airport; and a look at some of the other activities available at Hong Kong International Airport.
