TechLuver.com

On Tuesday, Dec 18, Nick Weininger, Software Engineer at Google introduced a new “Flight Status Check Feature” on Official GoogleBlog.

In his words, “The holiday season is upon us, and we know that many amongst you are traveling to be with family and friends. To make sure you spend more time celebrating and less time waiting at the airport, we’re introducing a new flight status feature that we hope will make your travels easier.

For the latest information on a flight’s status, simply search for an airline and flight number, and the first result will tell you whether your flight is on time or delayed as well as the estimated departure and arrival times.

P.S. We’re still working on building a search feature that will find your lost luggage ;-) More at GoogleBlog.

Here’s a quick example for a specific American Airlines flight 118:

NEW YORK — Nov 23, ‘07 — UAL Corp, parent of the No. 2 U.S. carrier United Airlines, is keen for a possible merger, according to an article in the Dec 3 edition of BusinessWeek that cited industry experts, says Reuters.

Reuters further writes, “Pardus Capital Management, a New York-based hedge fund, which owns a stake in both UAL and Delta Air Lines is pushing for a merger of the second and third largest U.S. carriers, according to recent media reports.

United and its parent UAL are in a real jam and a sale may be the best option for the airline, which is saddled with relatively high debt and wafer thin profit margins said the BusinessWeek report.

United, along with many of its peers, filed for bankruptcy following the September 11 attacks in 2001. It emerged from bankruptcy in 2006. The report contends that United’s extended pause on fleet expansion is an indication that the company is eager for a deal.

Industry experts believe that a Delta deal with Northwest Airlines is more likely than one with United, as the two companies belong to the same international alliance and have complimentary route structures, according to the report”. More at Reuters.

Nov 21, ‘07 — Israeli authorities plan to issue a new anti-hijack identification system to incoming aircraft which they say is foolproof, but some experts are not convinced it will plug all the security holes on the horizon.

Starting next year, Israel will require pilots who fly to its airports to use the Security Code System (SCS), a local invention designed to ensure planes that have been commandeered for al-Qaeda-style attacks are spotted in time.

Israel plans a trial run for the system, using a credit card-sized keypad, next month, in cooperation with five airlines from the United States, Europe and Africa. About 10 000 of the units will ultimately be issued, with Israel bearing the cost.

Pilots who fail the authentication test when they approach Israeli airspace will be denied entry. Should a plane go ahead, ignoring further warnings, Israel will consider it hostile and scramble fighter planes for an interception.

In the worst case, that could mean an aircraft is shot down. “You can’t bluff this system,” Dani Shenar, chief of security for Israel’s Transportation Ministry, said.

He said the system knows how to differentiate between “a classic hostage-taking hijacking and a 9/11-style hijacking”.

Elbits Systems designed Security Code System (SCS), is an apparel designed to have a 100% identification success rate of who is in the pilot’s seat. The first units of SCS will be deployed on a few American and European planes flying to Israel, starting in December 2007 for live tests.

Several experts familiar with Israeli methodology say the system — also known as “Code Positive” — is based on the assumption that a hijacking will take place in one of two ways.

Hijackers could either kill the pilots and take control — as is believed to have been the case in the September 11 attacks on the United States.

Or they could force pilots to issue a compliant response to the system in the hope of buying enough time to reach Israel and crash the planes into a target on the ground.

In the first case, the hijackers would fail the security check as they entered Israeli airspace, giving military authorities about 15 minutes to launch a response. In the second, Shenar said, pilots would be expected to relay a “May Day” alert. He declined to say how they would do this during a hijacking.

“International airliners have long been equipped with a universal transponder for emitting distress signals, something known to most hijackers by now. SCS would, at the very least, offer a novel safeguard,” Chris Yates, aviation security editor for Jane’s publications said. “Any technology enhancing flight safety is a worthwhile addition to the arsenal we have to beat terrorists”. More at M&G Online.

NORWALK, Conn.–BUSINESS WIRE–Nov. 5, 2007–Priceline.com announced today that it will permanently eliminate airline ticket booking fees on all published domestic and international fares. This means that, in most cases, priceline.com customers will pay less for their tickets than they would at other major full-service online travel reservation services, including Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz.The booking fee elimination applies to all priceline.com tickets purchased on a published-price basis and does not apply to priceline.com’s Name Your Own Price airline ticketing service, which already delivers some of the deepest discounts among the so-called opaque ticketing services.

“Today’s announcement reinforces priceline.com’s brand position as the online travel service with the best deals,” said priceline.com President and Chief Executive Officer Jeffery H. Boyd. “We already offer consumers an easy, one-stop way to do comparative ticket searches for most popular airlines, flights and prices. With our new no-booking-fee policy, priceline.com customers can get the best possible price on their tickets no matter which flight they choose.” More at Priceline.

Sydney–October 25, ‘07–The world’s largest passenger plane, the Airbus A380, has landed in Sydney on its first commercial flight, after a seven-hour journey from Singapore. A crowd of dozens of onlookers clapped and gasped as the largest airliner in the world, Singapore Airlines’ A380, landed at Sydney Airport this afternoon.

It can carry some 850 passengers, but took about 450 to Sydney. The superjumbo’s advent ends a reign of nearly four decades by the Boeing 747 as the world’s biggest airliner.

On the oberservation deck at the international terminal, there were shouts of “there it is” and pointing as the plane first came into view at about 5.25pm. Men, women and children craned their necks to catch a glance as it landed, with all manner of recording devices, video records, mobile phones and cameras, to document the moment.

While Airbus sees the future growth of air travel being focused on larger planes such as the A380 flying between major hubs, Boeing is aiming the mid-sized 787 at more flights between airports of all sizes.

Here are some interesting facts about the Airbus A380 superjumbo:
- The double-decker A380 measures 73 metres in length, or about 80 per cent of the smallest international football field
- The wing area is 845 square metres, enough to park 72 medium-sized cars on each wing
- It has 50 per cent more floor space than the next biggest aircraft, the Boeing 747 jumbo
- It can carry 853 passengers in an all-economy configuration
- The A380 has 530 kilometres of wiring, roughly equivalent to the distance between Frankfurt and Paris

SINGAPORE (Reuters) -October 24, ‘07- The world’s biggest jumbo jet was set to fly from Singapore on Thursday on its long-delayed first-ever commercial flight, as part of the Singapore Airlines daily service to Sydney.

The Airbus’ A380 superjumbo will leave the city-state’s Changi Airport at 8 a.m., returning to Singapore the following day. Passengers paid between $560 and $100,380 to be on the inaugural flight, after they had bid for the tickets as part of a charity auction to drum up publicity.

A $500 million upgrade of Sydney Airport will boost the number of shops and food outlets, and centralise international security screening as passenger numbers through the airport double within 16 years. The Sydney Morning Herald further reports, “But the upgrade could also lift the price of airline fares, as the costs of the upgrade are passed on to the airlines that service the airport.

Two aerobridges will be dismantled to make way for more frequent arrivals of larger aircraft such as the new Airbus A380, and work has begun on the construction of a centralised baggage handling system and expanded taxiways. The 7300 square metre expansion of the International Terminal is expected to be completed by 2009.”

More at SMH