Tell the airline what you want on every flight

Well, tell AirTran, anyway.

As part of a new campaign, AirTran wants you to visit www.everyflight.com and tell them what is the one thing you want on every flight.  It could be anything, and it doesn't have to make a lot of sense.  Submitted suggestions I found include trivia contests, bunny slippers, personal TVs, windmills (?), air fresheners, scuba diving (excuse me?), and lots of others.

What's the point?  Well, it's a promotion, but it's kind of clever and more than a little engaging. Not only can you add your own suggestions, but you can vote for your favorites and see the results by U.S. state.  New Yorkers seem to want WiFi on every flight but Californians want to see celebrities (go figure).  Actually, WiFi seems to show up most often.

According to AirTran:

"We'd like to know what our passengers want; whether it's Jacuzzis, foosball tables or live music, we want to hear from you," said Tad Hutcheson, vice president of marketing and sales for AirTran Airways. "We encourage all our customers to keep those creative suggestions coming until the big reveal in May."

That reveal comes May 12, 2009 and you may have a chance to win a seat on every flight.  There are more aspects to this promotion, but you'd best visit www.everyflight.com and see for yourself.

Have fun.

The FAA wants to limit access to bird strike data

From the April 4, 2009 posting at the respected AirSafe.com News titled Why the FAA Should Not Block Access to Bird Strike Data:

In March 2009, the FAA quietly made a stunning proposal to make it nearly impossible for the public to access a vital aviation safety resource. Since 1990, the FAA's National Wildlife Strike Database has been one of the most important tools for understanding bird and wildlife strike risks to aircraft. With over 100,0000 records, this database has the potential to benefit everyone who flies by giving the aviation safety community and the general public the opportunity to analyze that data in order to discover ways to reduce the threats to aircraft caused by birds and other wildlife. The FAA states several concerns about the database, but none of their arguments support their proposal to block public access to the data.

That post contains much more detail about the FAA's position and the opposing logic.  In the follow-on post of April 6, 2009 titled Send Your Comments to the FAA, AirSafe provides additional information, as well as instructions on how you can contact the FAA and submit your thoughts on this topic.

AirSafe is a great source for airline accident information, and is known to deal with facts, not early speculation.