PCMag: Google Flights Will Tell You the Cheapest Time to Book a Ticket. “Google is trying to solve a problem that has long vexed travelers everywhere: When is the best time to book the cheapest flight? Starting this week, the company will answer that question through Google Flights.”
CBS News Sacramento: Call Kurtis Investigates: Placer County couple with baby scammed escaping Maui. “Here’s the big takeaway: Never trust the top three to four Google search results. They are usually sponsored; essentially, ads anyone can take out. Scammers take advantage of that, and of you, especially after a disaster. Call the wrong number or click the wrong link, you could end up scammed.”
CNN: Passenger uses AirTag to track the bike his airline lost . “When your luggage goes missing, it’s bad enough. Tackling the start of your vacation without your clothes or toiletries? It’s not something most of us want to do. But when your luggage itself is the reason you’re traveling in the first place, it gets considerably worse. Luckily for Barry Sherry, when it happened to him, he had a secret weapon: a luggage tracker.”
Insider: A traveler’s Delta flight was canceled, so he called the airline’s number listed on Google. It led to a scammer — then he says he discovered more airlines with the same problem.. “‘My @delta flight got canceled from JFK. The customer service line was huge, so I google a Delta JFK phone number. The number was 1888-571-4869 Thinking I reached Delta, I started telling them about getting me on a new flight,’ he tweeted Sunday. But that phone call led him to a scam, he said. And, after more digging, [Shmuli] Evers said he discovered at least six other airlines with what he suspected were scam numbers listed on Google.”
Business Insider: The college student who tracks Elon Musk’s private jet on Twitter is now monitoring the jet used by Ron DeSantis. “The college student who tracks Elon Musk’s private jet on Twitter has decided to give Florida governor Ron DeSantis the same treatment.”
Simple Flying: Air France Highlights Customer Service Challenge Amid New Twitter Changes. “Social media platform Twitter will no longer be a resource to Air France for its customer service. The airline announced last week that it would cease direct message access for customer support.”
CBS: DOT tool shows which airlines let families sit together for free. “The Transportation Department on Monday debuted a new dashboard that shows families which airlines guarantee they can sit together without paying extra fees, as the Biden Administration takes steps to crack down on so-called ‘junk fees.'”
Business Insider: A 17-year-old Seattle high schooler is tracking more than 150 private jets’ emissions. “Using [Jack] Sweeney’s Ground Control Registration Database — which was developed to famously track Elon Musk’s private jet — [Akash] Shendure identifies and compiles carbon emissions from the private jets of more than 150 wealthy Americans and their families.”
National Transportation Safety Board: NTSB Releases Data Visualization Tool for General Aviation Accidents. “The General Aviation Accident Dashboard provides summary statistics, investigative findings and safety recommendations for general aviation accidents from 2012 through 2021. The Dashboard allows users to more intuitively display accident information, reports and statistics by selecting one or more filters for year, location, phase of flight and defining event.”
Business Insider: The college student who tracks Elon Musk’s private jet is launching his own flight-tracking website. “Jack Sweeney, the 20-year-old college student known for tracking Elon Musk’s private jet on social media, is launching his own jet-tracking website. Sweeney told Insider he decided to create the web-based public database after aviation data company JetNet announced last month that it had purchased ADS-B Exchange, a free website that tracks thousands of commercial aircraft around the world.”
Ars Technica: The flight tracker that powered @ElonJet has taken a left turn. “A major independent flight tracking platform, which has made enemies of the Saudi royal family and Elon Musk, has been sold to a subsidiary of a private equity firm. And its users are furious. ADS-B Exchange has made headlines in recent months for, as AFP put it, irking ‘billionaires and baddies.’ But in a Wednesday morning press release, aviation intelligence firm Jetnet announced it had acquired the scrappy open source operation for an undisclosed sum.”
Hongkiat: 7 Best Ways to Track Flights. “There are different methods to track flights, and in this post, we are going to list some of the best ways to do that. These include tools, a search engine, and one of iOS’s built-in apps. Let’s take a look at these in detail.”
CNN: Russian-speaking hackers knock multiple US airport websites offline. No impact on operations reported. “More than a dozen public-facing airport websites, including those for some of the nation’s largest airports, appeared inaccessible Monday morning, and Russian-speaking hackers claimed responsibility. No immediate signs of impact to actual air travel were reported, suggesting the issue may be an inconvenience for people seeking travel information.”
Washington Post: Europe’s largest airline is a troll on social media — and it’s working for them . “Last month, when a Ryanair passenger tweeted a complaint about the lack of a window by her exit row seat, she might have expected Europe’s largest airline to offer an apology using language straight out of a customer service manual. But this wasn’t British Airways or Lufthansa. It was a no-frills carrier that might best be described to Americans as the Spirit Airlines of Europe — if Spirit had the most savage Twitter presence of any brand in the sky.”
Good Morning America: New online dashboard helps fliers navigate flight delays and cancellations. “The U.S. Department of Transportation debuted its airline customer service dashboard today, which details airlines’ ‘commitments’ to passengers in the event of ‘controllable’ cancellations and delays within the airline’s control, such as mechanical or staffing issues.”
