Delta’s grand old 747 flew in to rescue Floridians from Irma’s wrath this week. Photo from Delta Museum’s 747 Experience at ATL. (Chris McGinnis)
Did you catch the hoo-hah surrounding Delta’s final domestic Boeing 747 flight earlier this week? The big jet flight originated in Honolulu, landed at Los Angeles LAX, and then flew its final commercial leg to Detroit. But as Irma strengthened in the Caribbean, and airlines took heat for price gouging and not doing enough to help travelers escape its path, Delta made a smart move– it pulled the Queen of the Skies out of her short retirement, and send it to Orlando several times over the weekend to help last minute evacuees get out of the way. Here’s our late Thursday tweet about this move, which proved to be one of our biggest tweets so far this year!
Good on @Delta! Putting the QUEEN back to work to help Floridians escape #Irma #747 MCO-DTW https://t.co/VmATtMPKhW #TravelSkills pic.twitter.com/MHuhCQwfPx
— Chris McGinnis (@cjmcginnis) September 8, 2017
Delta’s Boeing 747 is not done yet— it will continue to fly between the US and Asia until December. United’s final Boeing 747 flights will happen in October. Although neither airline has committed to a firm date, it’s expected that there will be some sort of ceremonial end for this beautiful bird. Stay tuned.
TravelSkills’ 10 most popular posts over the last week (descending order):
1 U.S. routes: Southwest, United, Alaska, AA, Delta, JetBlue + more
2 New transatlantic routes: Delta, American, BA, Lufthansa, United, WOW
3 Across the Pacific: Battle for Hong Kong + Flock of new A350s + lots more route news
4 New no-fee credit cards from Delta, United
5 Catching up after time off: What happened in August
6 A new way to Australia on United
7 Airberlin keeps operating – but for how long?
8 United, Delta 747 schedule: final flights
9 Planespotting: Boeing 737 vs Airbus A320 differences
10 Planespotting 101: Boeing 737 vs Airbus A320
Chris holed up at the fabulous St Regis Mexico City last month- don’t forget to sign up for SPG’s fall bonus! (Photo: Chris McGinnis)
It’s time to get signed up for all the new fall promotions from hotel chains— in order to take advantage of these deals to help boost fall and winter bookings, you have to register to get the special bonuses— don’t miss out on bonus points or free nights by not registering because you never know when you might end up at one of these hotel chains:
Links to stories from other sources that we thought you’d like to read:
As Delta and Aeromexico get closer, Alaska Air gets shoved out (Image: Delta)
Alaska Airlines and Aeromexico break up
United Airlines won’t be fined for dragging Dr Dao
United and Star Alliance launch new “Connection Service” at O’Hare
Google enhances air, hotel price-searching tools
Unruly passenger ordered to pay airline $98,000
Study finds that the “Southwest Effect” on air fares still works
Will driverless cars be followed by pilotless planes?
Number of “bumped” passengers hits an all-time low
Investors seek to revive Milwaukee-based Midwest Express Airlines
ICYMI, see the 25 most recent TravelSkills posts right here
In the market for a new credit card? See our “Credit Card Deals” tab to shop around! It helps us help you.
Don’t miss out! Join the 185,000+ people who read TravelSkills every month! Sign up here for one email-per-day updates!
