News and notes from around the interweb:
- flyDubai is introducing flat beds in business class on 737s. You’d think they’d be the first to have done that but no. Virgin Australia has promised this for next year as well.
Credit: flyDubai - The economics of tokens (HT: Marginal Revolution) Implications for understanding miles. Remember that American CEO Doug Parker thinks he wants his miles to be like bitcoin but that’s only because he doesn’t understand bitcoin, their issuer cannot simply devalue them and anyone can spend them anywhere that chooses to take them, the issuer doesn’t control whom can use them.
- The Economist notices moves by Air France KLM and British Airways to make their loyalty programs revenue-based not loyalty based.
- Wyoming is considering a tourism tax to promote tourism. I think they skipped econ 101. When you tax something you get less of it…
- I heard last week that Iraq is pushing for the U.S. to remove its NOTAM (Notice to Airmen) forbidding overflights of the country, so that they can generate overflight fees, to make privatizing their air traffic control organization more lucrative, in order to afford higher wages for air traffic controllers promised as a means of ending their ATC strike.
- Boeing sold 40 787-10s to Emirates to open the Dubai air show with a list value over $15 billion. Tell us again Delta how Emirates is bad for US jobs and we need protectionism?
- TSA is promoting video of their staffer running off with a bag after a lithium ion battery had exploded outside of security on Friday, causing the terminal to be evacuated and TSA even requiring flights which had pushed back to be offloaded in order to re-screen passengers. Despite passengers all already having been screened, and those screenings having little reliability.
Continue reading Iraq Privatizing Air Traffic Control and Wyoming Tourism Fails Econ 101…