
Graceful lineup of Delta tails at ATL (Photo: Chris McGinnis)
After a week in Cuba and another week in Atlanta, I’m glad to be back in San Francisco! With all the hoo-hah over security lines at ATL, I was sure to arrive two hours early on Saturday at around 9 a.m. Much to my surprise, the PreCheck line had a ZERO-minute wait. Seriously, I was the only person in line and sped right through.

Chicken salad, melon & prosciutto for lunch on American Airlines in first class, ATL-PHX (Photo: Chris McGinnis)
I flew American Airlines on this trip (using AAdvantage award), and was surprised that my flight to SFO via PHX did not depart from ATL’s T-gates. Instead, I had to trundle out to the old US Airways gates on D. Arriving in SFO, same thing happened: I was expecting a nice walk through American’s T2, but instead, we arrived at the old US Airways’ gate in Delta’s T1C boarding area. One thing I did notice in PHX is that American is making rapid progress on painting all its jets in AA livery– I only saw one US Airways jet, which of course was the A320 I flew from PHX to SFO. –Chris
TravelSkills’ 10 most popular posts over the last week (descending order):
1 Act fast! British Airways business class sale (expired, but we’ll keep an eye out for more)
2 Delta expands West Coast Shuttle
3 New solutions emerge for TSA airport security mess
4 Routes: San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, LAX, Salt Lake City, Denver + more…
5 Briefs: Alaska/JAL, AA biz seats, BA Wi-Fi, Lufthansa in Silicon Valley
6 Are passengers really happy with air travel?
7 Uber’s getting headaches from Harvard Business School

Getting a shave from a new Cuban friend in Cienfuegos (Photo: Mia Taylor)
8 Curious about Cuba? Don’t miss this [PHOTOS]
9 Hyperloop approaching faster than expected
10 Should I tip my Uber or Lyft driver? [Poll]
In case you missed Saturday’s post: Award seats: More on Delta; fewer on United

Chris goofing around with The Points Guy founder Brian Kelly in SF to give away a million JetBlue miles in a promo with Barclaycard (Photo: Chris McGinnis)
Links to stories from other sources that we thought you’d like to read:
Delta Award Travel Sale for fall trips
How to tip hotel front desk clerk. But would you?
JetBlue’s new status match program
ATL security still a mess. Check wait times here.
Don’t forget to register for Starwood’s new Triple Up summer promotion
Rolls Royce introduces new luggage line. But the pricetag? Whoa!

Royal Caribbean’s newest ship is longer than the Eiffel Tower is tall (Image: Royal Caribbean)
World’s newest, largest cruise ship: 6,000+ passengers, 2,000+ crew. Whew!
Public smoking banned in world’s largest tobacco market
British Airways mystery: How did this flight land with a square tire?
Kayak founder’s new app is a kind of virtual travel agent
Wyndham Rewards program adds new member levels
Hotel owners’ lawsuit seeks to block Marriott-Starwood merger
Are driverless shuttles coming to airports?

My most popular Instagram post this week. CLICK to learn more about this cake- and to follow Chris 🙂
NOTE: Be sure to click here to see all recent TravelSkills posts about: United’s newest, longest flight + Tipping Uber drivers + Qantas 747 Trip Report + Confusion over PreCheck policies + No-fee earlier flights
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Not all the old HP’s 320 are being repainted due to the age of the aircraft.