As we head to the end of 2022, it's time for me to look back at the year and review some of the things that happened, as well as postulate what might happen in 2023. Food and Beverage - Swipe your card to continue As restrictions have loosened, the passenger experience has been slowly recovering to pre-pandemic levels. This can be seen even in long-haul economy class, … [Read more...]
REVIEW 2021: My Year in Travel (or still not a lot of it)
Welcome to the last part of Review 2021 at Economy Class and Beyond – This time focused on my travels. Or lack of them thereafter. A year mostly on pause For me the story of the year seems to be waiting, waiting and further waiting, for nations to open and other things to settle down. Whilst the "settling down" part took a major hit in November and December, things … [Read more...]
REVIEW 2021: Well had more ups and downs than some rollercoasters
Well, we're coming to the end of 2021. How has travel been for you? A slimmer industry With the bloodbath of 2020 behind us, airlines have emerged slimmer than they were before. This has caused route maps to be redrawn, jobs to be lost - and at a time when more passengers are travelling - some are hiring and some a realising they've cut back too hard when staff go off … [Read more...]
Review 2020 – Turbulence Everywhere
It's been a hard year for airlines and their staff in 2020 - one of the biggest way this has been seen is the slashing of fleets through the year. Let's look at some of the notable events of the year. Early Warnings: Air Italy and Flybe halt operations With COVID-19 starting to rear its ugly head, two airlines fell quickly, with FlyBe going to the wall (allegedly … [Read more...]
Travel Technology Review: The Microsoft Surface Laptop 3
Time for another bench test and review - this time featuring the Microsoft Surface Laptop 3. The subject of our discussion today. This is going to be a very much “hands-on” review rather than full of benchmarks (although there will be a Cinebench run for entertainment's sake). What is it? The Surface laptop is the mid-high level end device from the … [Read more...]
REVIEW 2019: My Year in Review
It's been another interesting year of travel for me, with some familiar destinations and a few new ones. Firstly, my map of travel for the year. Maps generated by the Great Circle Mapper – copyright © Karl L. Swartz. And my segments broken down Total distance: 37,753 miles Sectors: 22 Class sectors: Business Class 11 … [Read more...]
Review 2019: What has caught your eye…
We're continuing Review 2019 today, with a look at the top 20 posts published over the year. However, I'm not revealing the hard numbers - I'm instead going to go by category of what you've been reading. Passenger Experience Lufthansa Rolls out Hand Baggage fares on its long-haul network - Well, we all knew this was coming a mile off as airlines seek to charge more money … [Read more...]
REVIEW 2018: My year in review – and a year of improvements
I’m taking a look back at my travels this year and asking myself questions about Passenger Experience Highs and Lows. Because I seem to have picked up some interesting experiences both in the front and the back of the plane this year. Let’s do the numbers and a map: Maps generated by the Great Circle Mapper – copyright © Karl L. Swartz … [Read more...]
REVIEW 2018 – September to December
It's time to dive into the year in review, and pick out some highlights, lowlights and everywhere in between in the year, this time looking between September to the end of December. Like the weekly updates, I've gone through some of the choicer articles, with some one line insight. September Flybe goes through another rebrand… - although this won't be the … [Read more...]
REVIEW 2018 – May to August
It's time to dive into the year in review, and pick out some highlights, lowlights and everywhere in between in the year. This time, we're going back in time to May, through to the end of August. Like the weekly updates, I've gone through some of the choicer articles May Not so long now for the Qantas Boeing 747 fleet... KLM to offer Douwe Egberts coffee on … [Read more...]