Eiffel Tower’s lights are to go out

Since January 1, 2000, every hour after dusk, the 20,000 bulbs twinkle brilliantly for ten minutes in what has become a tourist hit. But starting next month, Sete, the company subcontracted by Paris to run the tower, has decided to half the time the bulbs are on, cutting illumination from 400 to 200 hours per year.

American Airlines launches Aircell’s mobile broadband service Gogo

Customers traveling on American’s Boeing 767-200 aircraft can access complete coast-to-coast coverage on nonstop flights between New York and San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles, and New York and Miami. American and Aircell have joined together to bring the first full inflight broadband service to the US market.

Aircell’s Gogo will be available to customers as a fee-based service in all cabins. Each paid Gogo session includes full Internet access. Cell phone and Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) services are not available.

They’re changing hats at Buckingham Palace to save the black bear

They have perched atop the heads of straight-faced soldiers for almost 200 years, been photographed by millions of tourists and generated countless protests, but now the controversial bearskin hats worn by the Buckingham Palace Guardsmen finally seem likely to be replaced with a more modern, humane alternative.

The hats commemorate the victory over Napolean’s Imperial Guards at the battle of Waterloo and were modeled after the hats that the French guardsmen wore.

Frommer’s travel guides now available for iPod and iPhone

Digital editions of Frommer’s 2008 guides to New York, San Francisco, London and Paris are $9.99 from Apple.com via the new Apple App Store and from iTunes.

Plane with blown tire lands safely at Los Angeles airport

An American Airlines jet carrying 135 people returned safely to Los Angeles International Airport today after blowing a tire during takeoff on a flight to Toronto. The Boeing 737 touched down without incident, a flattened tire visible on the inboard side of its left main landing gear. The outboard tire on the left side appeared normal.

Woman told to repay airline for diversion (Fake Bomb Scare Brings Real $23,000 Fine)

A New York judge ordered a disgruntled airline passenger who falsely claimed to have a bomb in her bag to pay JetBlue the cost of making an emergency landing.

She was trying to get the plane that left with her luggage and without her to turn around.

Popularity: 10% [?]

A while back I wrote an article analyzing the finances of online travel agency YTB. My conclusion was that it was better to be YTB than someone who is building a travel agency based on them. It all smelled a bit. Apparently I am not the only one who reached that conclusion as they were just sued by California’s Attorney General as a Ponzi scheme.

Brown Sues To Topple Online Pyramid Scheme

California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. today announced a lawsuit against YourTravelBiz.com for operating a “gigantic pyramid scheme” that recruited tens of thousands of members with deceptive claims that members could earn huge sums of money through its online travel agencies.

Wireless culture taking to the air

Delta Air Lines announced Tuesday that it will introduce Wi-Fi access on certain aircraft by fall and expand it to its entire domestic fleet of more than 330 planes by next summer. American Airlines and Virgin America previously have said they will launch in-flight broadband Internet services on certain planes by year-end.

TSA to allow laptops to stay in approved bags

There’s a new option for people annoyed at having to take their laptops out of their bags at airport security. The Transportation Security Administration will now allow travelers to leave their computers inside “checkpoint friendly” cases.

Airline industry axes 60m seats

The global airline industry will fly 60m fewer seats in the run-up to Christmas - equivalent to a 7% cut in flights - as the oil spike and economic downturn force carriers to axe services.

Kayak and American Airlines are having a bit of a tif:

Kayak.com drops American Airlines airfares from listings

American Airlines telling you that it will no longer be displaying airfares on Kayak.com or sister site Sidestep.com.

American Airlines spokesman Tim Wagner explained the company’s tiff with Kayak. The airline asked the meta-search engine to bar American ticket purchases through online travel agencies such as Orbitz.com or Cheaptickets.com. As of today, American’s airfares were not available on Kayak.com but flight schedules were still listed.

and in the expected follow up story:

Kayak.com drops American Airlines airfares from listings

American Airlines spokesman Tim Wagner explained the company’s tiff with Kayak. The airline asked the meta-search engine to bar American ticket purchases through online travel agencies such as Orbitz.com or Cheaptickets.com. As of today, American’s airfares were not available on Kayak.com but flight schedules were still listed.

American Airline sues parent of Kayak.com and Sidestep.com

Fort Worth-based American Airlines is suing the parent of meta-search sites Kayak.com and Sidestep.com, saying the Web sites violated its agreement to use the airline’s airfare content.

At issue is whether the sites were allowed to display American fares through third-party sites, including orbtiz.com and cheaptickets.com — where the carrier must pay booking fees — rather than just on www.aa.com.

After Beheading, Greyhound Kills Ad Campaign

Yes, the company offering famously lousy service had just launched an ad campaign with the line “There’s a reason you’ve never heard of ‘bus rage’” when, on a trip from Alberta to Winnipeg, one of its passengers was apparently beheaded and eaten. Suffice to say, they’re doing away with the campaign

and in the strangest piece of news, the conspiracies around the murder that happened at the Olympics:

An American tourist is murdered, and conspiracy theories abound

What would make you stab a 62-year-old tourist to death in the middle of the day and then leap off a 150-foot tower? That’s a question you can’t help puzzling over if you’re in Beijing. What on earth was going on in the mind of Tang Yongming, the 47-year-old man who stabbed two Americans and their Chinese guide over the weekend? Todd Bachman, the father-in-law of the U.S. men’s volleyball coach, was killed in the attack.

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I have not yet read Dear American Airlines by Jonathan Mills but I like the idea of this novel which is written in the form of a complain letter to American Airlines. I can imagine that with the kind of year that American Airlines has been having that their executives are less thrilled with the idea.

Author Elizabeth Gilber says of the book:

The novel relays the tale of Bennie Ford, a man who is marinating like a cocktail olive in the sour middle-aged juices of his own mistakes, but who has decided to redeem himself completely by attending the wedding of his estranged daughter. Now, as some of us have learned from painful personal experience, it’s not always easy to redeem a lifetime of screw-ups in one weekend, but that doesn’t deter Bennie from heading to the airport to fly off to what he has decided is the most important event in his life. (The fact that he doesn’t seem to notice that the wedding should actually be the most important event in his DAUGHTER’S life, not his, is an early clue of his particular breed of hilarious narcissism.) But at the airport is where his troubles begin, as American Airlines cancels his flight and thus–as far as he is concerned–destroys his life. What follows is a complaint letter raised to the level of high narrative art. I have never before encountered a novel written in the form of a complaint letter, and we can safely assume there will never be another such after this one, just because Miles has created an inimitable story here–one which, despite all the dark wit of its narrator–leaves room in the sad margins for real heartbreak, real feeling, real life. (This is something Amis himself wasn’t able to do until many years into his career.) This is the most entertaining first novel I’ve read in a long while, as well as a searing cautionary tale. Bring it to the airport with you next time you fly somewhere to change your life…

Popularity: 38% [?]

You have probably already heard the news that a number of airlines have started charging to check a second bag, but late last month American Airlines decided that it really wasn’t so thrilled with people bringing luggage at all so it started charging $15 for the first bag and $25 for the second bag ($100 for the 3rd bag). That charge is each way. So if you check any bag and do a round trip expect to pay an additional $30 above what is the price of the ticket.

You can avoid this fee if you travel in first or business class. It also will not apply to Elite AAdvantage members who are American’s frequent flyers. It also will not apply if you have the unfortunate experience of paying for a full fare ticket.

Clearly rising fuel costs are behind American’s need to raise fees somewhere, but we will see if passengers like being surprised with an extra fee for what used to be free. I expect that American has actually gone a step too far with this move and would not be surprised to see that this hurts their business when word gets around.

For more information read American’s luggage policy.

Popularity: 49% [?]

Freep reported today:

American Airlines canceled more than 1,000 flights Wednesday, more than one-third of its schedule, as it spent a second straight day inspecting the wiring on some of its jets — the same issue that caused it to scrub hundreds of flights two weeks ago.

The nation’s biggest airline had already canceled 460 flights on Tuesday, stranding thousands of travelers. Federal inspectors found problems with wiring work done two weeks ago, although the airline says passenger safety was never jeopardized.

Airline officials said the flights would have averaged more than 100 passengers, meaning that more than 100,000 travelers could have been left scrambling to book new flights.

This is only the latest round of cancelled flights in an ongoing series of investigations from the FAA that may extend into the Summer.

The New York Times reports:

Air travelers, whose plans have already been disrupted by thousands of canceled flights recently, may face continued chaos in coming weeks as the Federal Aviation Administration and the airlines expand their scrutiny of passenger planes.

The groundings at airlines like American, Alaska, Delta and Southwest resulted from a broader round of inspections, ordered by the F.A.A., to determine whether the airlines have complied with past directives to check airplane structures, wires, electronics and other components.

A second wave of audits began on March 30 and will continue through June 30. Laura J. Brown, a spokeswoman for the F.A.A., said it could not rule out further groundings. “We don’t know,” she said. “We find what we find.”

Popularity: 41% [?]