American Airlines to play big role in Qantas' historic Chicago service "In an internal memo obtained by the Chicago Business Journal, Franco Tedeschi, American’s regional vice-president in charge of O’Hare Airport (ORD) and its 10,000 AA employees, revealed that American Airlines (NASDAQ: AAL) will handle ground operations in Chicago for business partner Qantas. What’s more, sources say British Airways mechanics based at O’Hare will handle any maintenance issues that might arise on the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner that Qantas will fly on the ORD-BNE route. A, Qantas and British Airways are members of the same OneWorld global airline alliance. The new ORD-BNE flight will be the longest ever from Chicago, traversing nearly 9,000 miles in around 17 hours. If successful, the ORD-BNE flight could pave the way for more flights from Chicago to Australia." Building them: Incredible The airlines buy these things like gumdrops at $250 million apiece! See: https://www.yahoo.com/news/m/3932a2ac-8559-3497-bc10-fdf738345f34/american-airlines-to-play-big.html
They'd have to deplane me in a body bag, especially if I had to fly "cattle class". The longest single flight I've been on was 13 hours. Never again.
Back in March of 1954 I took a non scheduled flight from NY to LA and arrived 18 hours later. Non scheds would land almost anywhere if notified in flight that a VIP needed a ride somewhere. This started in Washington DC, then in Chicago, next Phoenix and then we had to land due to a blizzard in Albuquerque, NM. We were stuck there for hours. Finally, we took off and landed in Burbank, CA. Often, when I was on flying status in the A.F. we would have to make non sched stops or even go out of our way to pick up Brass, but that was more or less SOP.
WestJet shuttled 71 customers from Calgary to Vancouver Thursday morning onboard a Boeing 737 Max, the first passenger flight of the aircraft model in Canada following an investigation into safety concerns