Greg Barlow writes about premium aviation, frequent flyer programs, and travel strategy for Air Gazette. He flies primarily on ANA, JAL, and Thai Airways, with regular routings to Tokyo, Bangkok, and Jakarta, and books most of his business-class travel using miles transferred from credit-card points portfolios. On flights to Europe, he rarely flies a U.S. carrier European flag carriers are routinely $1,500 to $2,000 cheaper in the same business-class cabin on the same dates. The forecast above reflects ten-plus years of those bookings.
Power banks are everywhere in the cabin until one starts smoking. After a wave of in-flight fires and one total aircraft loss, airlines are rewriting the rules overnight. Here's what's banned, what's still allowed, and why your next flight might treat your charger differently than your last one did.
United just made headphones a legal requirement, not a suggestion. Skip them for a TikTok scroll or a movie, and a flight attendant can now have you removed or banned for good. The airline buried the change inside its Contract of Carriage in February, and most flyers still don't know it exists. Here's exactly what changed, why it happened now, and what it means the next time you board.
Priority Pass gets you in the door. Amex Platinum gets you somewhere nicer. Airline status gets you somewhere free, if you've earned it. Amex just made its own lounges harder to use, and Capital One quietly killed Venture X's free guest perk too. Here's what each path actually buys you now, and which card still earns its fee.
Where you get stationed decides almost everything about your paycheck as an air traffic controller. A small tower can start you near $50,000. The busiest hubs in the country push past $175,000 in base pay alone, before overtime or locality pay. Here's exactly how the FAA's facility-level system splits the money, and what's actually changed in your favor this year.
Your bag didn't just vanish Delta, United, and American are on the hook for it, whether they advertise that or not. Federal rules cap what they owe at $4,700, and the airlines aren't allowed to lowball you with a made-up daily limit. Here's exactly what each carrier pays, how fast you need to move, and the paperwork that gets you the full amount instead of the runaround.
Booking two cheap tickets through O'Hare instead of one? That's a self-transfer, and airlines won't protect it if things go wrong. A tight layover that looks fine on Google Flights can turn into a missed meeting with zero compensation. Here's the real minimum connection time at ORD, who actually absorbs the cost when it fails, and what business travelers should check before they book.
Delta just opened its second Delta One Lounge at LAX this one in Terminal 2, debuting in June 2026 with showers, cabana bathrooms, and California-sourced dining. But it comes with a strict guest list. Here's who actually qualifies to walk through the door, and who's stuck on the other side of it.
Delta's CEO just gave business travelers a number to plan around: 2027. Fares aren't dropping until FAA staffing catches up, and a new Basic Business fare quietly changes what a lie-flat seat now includes.
Nobody explains business class etiquette in the safety briefing, but the cabin runs on it anyway. Keep the tray, skip the bread basket, and ask for the mattress pad before it's too late. Most regulars didn't learn this from a guide they learned it by almost getting it wrong.
The FAA just proposed ending the 53 year ban on supersonic flight over US land. Here's the real regulatory chain behind it, what NASA's X-59 just proved, and why your next long-haul flight isn't getting faster anytime soon
I connected through Newark this spring with barely two hours to spare and under the FAA's new 72-flights-an-hour cap, that math doesn't work the same way anymore. The order runs through October 2026, and it's already reshaping upgrade clearance, award space, and connection buffers for anyone flying United through EWR. Here's what's actually driving the cap, who's absorbing the cost, and how to plan around it.
Every flight school promises a different timeline three months, eight months, "as fast as possible." After cross referencing FAA regulations directly, the real answer comes down to one number: hours. Here's the actual path from your first license to the 1,500 hours ATP rule, including the little-known shortcut that can shave a year off the timeline.