Aviation

A New York City man has filed a more than $2 million lawsuit against JetBlue Airways Corp., claiming that a pilot made him give up his seat to a flight attendance and sit on a toilet for more than three hours during a flight from California.

In the court documents, Gokhan Mutlu said that the pilot told him to "go 'hang out' in the bathroom" about 90 minutes into his San Diego to NYC flight. He says that he was asked to move because a flight attendant complained that the "jump seat" she was assigned to was uncomfortable.

Mutlu was traveling using a "buddy pass", which is a standby travel voucher given to friends by JetBlue employees. He flew from New York to San Diego on February 16, and took a return flight to New York on February 23.

Mutlu was initially told that a flight attendant had taken the plane's last seat, but was later advised that she would sit in the employee "jump seat", which meant that he could in fact have the last seat.

Another one bites the dust! Frontier Airlines has now filed for bankruptcy after a credit card processor indicated that they would begin withholding receipts from the airline's ticket sales. Stockholders are now quite nervous, and are considering pulling out to avoid further losses.

According to a statement, Frontier said that they would continue to operate without disruption during the bankruptcy proceedings, offering their full schedule of flights, honoring reservations, and paying both its employees and suppliers.

Denver-based Frontier said that they were forced to file for bankruptcy protection "following an unexpected attempt by its principal credit card processor to substantially increase a 'holdback' of customer receipts, which threatened to severely impact Frontier's liquidity." The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in a New York court on Friday.

Over the next 10 years the Akron-Canton Airport will begin 10 projects. The airport authority is calling the improvements the most ambitious capital improvement in the airports history. Among the additions and improvements are a major runway extension to a new customs and border patrol facility to accommodate international flights.

The addition of ecomony carriers AirTran Airways and Frontier Airlines have helped the Akron-Canton Airport double ridership from 2000 to 2006.

"Because of our low fares and excellent service, we now welcome 1.4 million passengers every year," said Kristie Van Auken, marketing & communications director. "Our goal is to make each one of them feel at home at CAK. This ambitious plan will focus on the customer experience first and foremost."

Cleveland travelers will be able happy to hear the Continental Airlines has added three new non stop flights to their Hopkins Airline hub. Non stops to Greensboro, NC, Omaha, Neb., and Savannah, GA, will all begin on Monday.

"Continental is pleased to be able to expand the range of destinations from our Cleveland hub with these new flights to Greensboro, Omaha and Savannah," said Robbie Anderson, senior director, Cleveland. "We will continue to add additional nonstop destinations from Cleveland over the next few months, including Paris, which will be the second city in Europe with nonstop service from Cleveland."

Here is the schedule of the flights according to the companies press release:

The new flights to Greensboro will depart Cleveland each day at 11:45 a.m., and 7:30 p.m. Flights from Greensboro to Cleveland will depart at 6:41 a.m. and 2:15 p.m. A third round trip flight will be added on April 6, 2008.

The daily flights to Omaha will depart Cleveland each day at 9:20 a.m. and 8:50 p.m. The flights from Omaha to Cleveland will depart at 7:35 a.m. and 11:35 a.m. A third daily flight will be added on May 4, 2008.

Beginning this upcoming Tuesday, JetBlue airlines will make limited e-mail and instant messaging available on their flights. JetBlue has teamed up with Research in Motion (RIM), and Yahoo to make this service possible.

Passengers on the equipped planes will soon be able to use their laptops and WiFi enabled phones to access a customized version of Yahoo Mail and Yahoo Messenger. BlackBerry users will also be able to check their email, and use BlackBerry's IM client on their phones.

In the future, JetBlue is hoping to offer additional ervices beyond just e-mail and instant messaging. JetBlue is able to make these services available on their planes as they are in a unique position amongst airlines, as they have licensed spectrum from the FCC which allows it to transmit from planes to the ground. Use of the spectrum is limited to JetBlue, but if JetBlue did want to capitalize on it, they could sell a similar service to other airline carriers.

Starting today, airline passengers in Houston will be able to board planes using cellphones and PDAs, instead of the standard paper boarding passes. The high-tech new check-in procedure was unveiled today by Continential Airlines at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) at George Bush Intercontinental Aiport in Houston.

The three-month long test program may expand nationwide if Continental finds it to be a success. To board planes, passengers simply showed identification and codes sent to their cell phones or PDAs. The two-dimensional bar code sent to the device contains passenger names and flight information, and is scanned by TSA to verify authenticity.

Midwest Airlines' famous chocolate chip cookies are now available for purchase off the plane, as a ready-made package of cookie dough. The airline usually offers the cookies free to passengers during their flights, which are very popular with passengers. Apparently, demand for their secret recipe has escalated.

Instead of giving up their secret recipe, however, Midwest Airlines has decided to make the ready-bake dough available for consumer purchase. Right now, the cookie dough is only available in Milwaukee area Balistreri-owned and operated Sendik's Food Markets. Midwest Airlines headquarters are in Milwaukee so it makes sense that they're making them available there. It's unclear at this time whether they will be making the cookie dough available in other markets.

Midwest Airlines may very well be the first airline to make available its food for retail purchase.

Good news for Cleveland! The U.S. Department of Transportation has issued a "show cause order" which indicates that Continental Airlines has won the right to fly to Shanghai, China from Newark, NJ, with through service to Cleveland, OH.

What the "show cause order" means is that there are ten calendar days to object to the tentative award. It's highly unlikely that anyone will actually object, so it is more of a formality than anything.

Unfortunately, service won't be permitted to start before March 25, 2009. Continental will, however, begin providing Cleveland to Paris flights in 2008, as indicated earlier this year.

Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly announced their company's decision to continue their open seating boarding policy. However, he failed to mention a change in another policy - families will no longer be allow to pre-board their flight.

The policy which bars families from pre-boarding flights goes into affect on October 2nd. Southwest Airlines has thus far failed to mention this, but reports from CNBC today confirm the change. Families and adults travelling with small children will no longer be allowed to pre-board Southwest Airlines flights.

It's a good week for Cleveland. Not only did the NASA Glenn Research Center announce plans earlier this week to expand and upgrade facilities in the area, but now Continental is planning a major expansion at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport (CLE).

At 10:30am Friday, Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson and Ohio Governor Ted Strickland announced Continental's plan to grow its capacity at Hopkins Airport by an astounding 40% over a two-year period.

As part of the plan, Continental will initially operate 50 new flights, mainly on regional jets, and then add 20 new non-stop destinations by summer 2008. By early 2009, they plan to add more than a dozen additional flights, mainly on mainline aircraft, which would further strengthen Cleveland's role in the company's global route.

In addition, many regional jet aircraft used for the additional service will e reallocated from Newark, and beginning in 2009, additional mainline aircraft will be added to support growth in that area.

Continental's expansion at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport is expected to create 700 new Ohio jobs. The expansion announcement today is the direct result of a partnership between Continental, the City of Cleveland, and the State of Ohio.