Tag: air travel
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How Far You Won’t Go
Housekeeping first, as you may have noticed, I haven’t been publishing as much lately. That’s because I’ve been on holiday. After a tremendously busy year, I need to use up all the time I didn’t spend on holiday. Consequently, I’m only going to be posting a handful or so more times before the end of…
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Revenge of the Flyover States
Just before Halloween, NBC News published an article by political analyst David Wasserman that examined what airports could portend about the 2020 American presidential election. For those interested in politics and the forthcoming election, the article is well worth the read. The tldr; Democrats have been great at winning over cosmopolitan types in global metropolitan areas…
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The New Longest Flight
You might recall that back in March I wrote about the use of spherical maps to show great circles. This helps illustrate the actual routes that aircraft take in flight. (Yes, actual flight plans deviate based on routes, weather, traffic, &c.) At the time I wrote about how there was a soon-to-be Singapore–New York route.…
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Southwest 1380
On Tuesday, Southwest Flight 1380 made an emergency landing here in Philadelphia after the Boeing 737-700’s port engine exploded. One passenger died, reportedly after being partially sucked out of the aircraft after the explosion broke a window. But the pilot managed to land the aircraft with only one engine and without any further deaths. I…
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Circle This
Last week I met a friend for drinks and part of our conversation was about how on a trip to east Asia, he flew from New York and then over the North Pole. The North Pole! I then explained it was cool, but not unique. Instead aircraft typically fly between destinations via great circles. Basically,…
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Airport Codes
I managed to find myself in a handful of airports over the last few weeks. Consequently I brushed up on my airport codes, the three-letter abbreviations you often find on boarding passes and data displays. Well, if only I had seen this particular reference from xkcd. Credit for the piece goes to Randall Munroe.
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Flying for Thanksgiving
This is a piece from a few years ago, but the New York Times cleverly brought it to the front of their Upshot page. And it seemed just so appropriate. Many of you are likely travelling today—I’m not, I’m headed to work—and many of you will be driving or taking the train. But some will…
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Where Trump Has Travelled
Okay, not entirely. But Bloomberg put together a solid series of graphics tracking not the travels of Donald Trump, but his private aircraft. But that information can serve as a rough proxy for Trump’s travels. But the data is not complete—Russia is missing from the map though he has visited the country for business. Credit for…
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Striking the Balance Between Airline Prices and Service
Yesterday I took a look at the Alaskan Airlines and Virgin America merger. Part of the disappointment on the internets centres around the service and experience delivered by Virgin. I mean who doesn’t like mood lighting, right? Well the Economist took a look at international airlines by both price and service. And if we use…
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Merging Alaska Airlines and Virgin America
Alaska Airlines and Virgin America made some news the past few days when they announced Alaska would purchase Virgin America for $2.6 billion. I mapped out the flight routes of the two carriers to see where they overlapped. You can see the results in my piece for the blog today below. Credit for the work…