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Delta: Delta Air Lines filed for bankruptcy-court protection today, capping a slow, nearly four-year long financial dive brought on by the crushing weight of high fuel prices, a heavy debt load and a restructuring plan that began too late to save the carrier.*

Northwest: Northwest Airlines filed for Chapter 11 Wednesday, joining the ranks of carriers operating under federal bankruptcy-court protection.

Read more at Yahoo! News.

* Darn, a day earlier than I thought.

Gary, kudos to Sabre and Travelocity for offering one of the best sites I never knew. StudentUniverse offers cheap flights to students all through a very easy interface.

I first used Travelocity’s site to look up a round-trip flight from Denver to LA. I was looking at roughly $325 after all was said and done. I then noticed a little banner and visited the StudentUniverse site. The pricing started at $136! After I changed my times (very easy to use) it ended up coming to about $170.

Wow, I just saved over 50% on airfare! Why did I not know about this before?!?

Students: before you book your flight, check out StudentUniverse.com.

The Sabre Geek himself, Gary Potter, points to an blog article that may be slightly concerning.

Southern California law enforcement professionals assigned to detect new threats to personal security issues recently discovered what type of information is embedded in the credit-card-type hotel room keys used throughout the hotel industry.

Apparently part of your address and credit card information are stored on the cards. Hotels don’t erase these cards… they just write over them. Simple solution? It’s about time you started you hotel key-card collection…

Update: Recently brought to my attention:

Aaron says:
Quite a few references indicate that this is another email hoax:

http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/k/keycards.htm
http://www.breakthechain.org/exclusives/keycards.html
http://www.snopes.com/crime/warnings/hotelkey.asp

Thanks for the interesting discussions…

Virgin Atlantic has the answer.

Ignoring borders and time zones, they make the world smaller with each journey, the company said, and it is these travelers that have made the airline a successful venture for Virgin.

Virgin is looking for the head “jetrosexual” who will recieve two roundtrip Upper Class tickets to London.

[The] 11 Commandments of the “jetrosexual” include tenets such as “thou shalt be able to order a beer in six different languages” and “thou shalt have at least one passport stamp from a country that now goes by a different name.”

Nominations are being accepted online.

Lifehacker points to a very thorough site describing everything you’ll need to pack and do for a trip. The Universal Packing List has a number of comments and descriptions of products you’ll want or may not have thought of. I’ve never seen a website take so much into account for. It’s certainly worth a quick look…

Unfortunately, under ‘lodging’ you can’t select “airport”, though. Lifehacker also points to a site that ranks airports on sleep quality. The Budget Traveller’s Guide to Sleeping in Airports currently has over 3200 listings. Again, maybe worth a look…

This post from Triple Pundit definitely grabbed my attention today. I had no idea…

According to The Australian, a jet aircraft flying from London to Hong Kong puts out an astonishing 2.76 tons of carbon dioxide - per passenger. That’s not trivial.

Wow. I had no idea that this is taken account for when firms are audited, either.

…there’s a lot I don’t know.

Now both Ford and DiamlerChrysler have joined GM (which saw a definite increase in sales) by introducing similar employee discount plans. The three companies will provide the discounts until August 1st.

Unfortunately the pricing does not apply to the Ford Mustang, GT, Escape hybrid, Chrysler 300 sedan, the Dodge Magnum wagon or the Dodge Charger. That’s alright, I already ran out and bought a new BMW from GM, anyway…

Reuters: General Motors Corp. expects to close more U.S. assembly and component plants over the next few years, slashing at least 25,000 manufacturing jobs as it battles high costs and shrinking market share, the company’s chief executive said on Tuesday.

Oh no… I can’t decide whether or not I feel sorry for the industry. Didn’t we see this coming though back when their stock plummited? When the company was down a billion dollars? Wagoner certainly had a number of upset shareholders to answer to at the annual meeting today.

Trivia: which stockholder wasn’t there? Mr. Krikorian…

Reuters: Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is quietly testing company-owned gas stations at a handful of its U.S. stores, a move that could stall its partner Murphy Oil Corp.’s fast-growing gas station business.

I live across the street from a Safeway where the gas is already something like 3-cents cheaper… thats enough for me. Going to Wal-Mart for a few more cents less would seem like selling my soul.

PS: Wal-Mart gas stations accounted for nearly 40 percent of Murphy’s total revenue last year… sounds like someone’s about to get hosed.

Engadget: …we’re filled with heady anticipation at the news that United Airlines is planning to become the first domestic carrier to offer WiFi access on all of its flights (assuming that they don’t go out of business first, that is).

Too bad we’ll have to wait over a year for it.

International flights are a different story though: Scoble blogs from the plane and Calacanis plans on it.

Durango Herald Online: Cortez sophmore builds model hydrogen car

…if only it were that simple. via

Gary Potter talks about a new program Travelocity is introducing called the Customer Championship program. They are pledging to work with their partners to make everything about your booking right, even if it means waiving change and cancellation fees for air tickets for the wrong dates as long as you let them know within 24 hours. I don’t think any other GDS’ offer this kind of satisfaction…

I forgot where I had seen the article but the other day there was a quick blurb about self-service in hotels. Since we’re all capable of obtaining our ticket at the airport, why can’t we do the same at a hotel? I’m convinced that you don’t need to hire someone to type in my name, addresses, ask which room I want, etc. It’d be much easier for me to type my own name and address (I think I can master both in under 3 seconds without a mouse) and take a look at an actual floor plan of a hotel to choose my room. Naturally, you do need someone at a desk but a room-key dispenser could be as simple as an ATM machine.

It appears as if some Las Vegas hotels, Hyatt Hotels, and Embassy Suites (among many) have adopted the idea…

Today travelers rejoyced as Boeing annouced a new 777 that will be able to fly from London to Sydney. Wait, no, I doubt anyone really did. But, the fact that it can travel anywhere is certainly an interesting prospect.

The new, 301-passenger, long-range 777 is expected to make its first flight in March and will be delivered first to Pakistan International airlines, its launch customer for the new version of the 777, in January of 2006. The twin-engine airplane, when equipped with three optional fuel tanks, will be capable of flying 9,420 nautical miles, enough to “connect any two cities in the world today,” said Lars Andersen, Boeing’s vice president in charge of the 777 program at Boeing Commercial Airplanes.

Reuters

Sorry for the sudden interest in airlines but Gary Potter pointed out a fun little celebration put on by Southwest. Nothing like airline employees in pajamas…

Caption reads: Southwest Airlines’ Chairman, Herb Kelleher (at podium), and its CEO, Gary Kelly (in background), today celebrated the retirement of the airline’s founding aircraft type with approximately 1,000 Southwest Employees. The Boeing 737-200 helped launch the carrier 33 years ago and is now being replaced by the newer 737-700 model.

Southwest was actually one of the airlines that wasn’t hit as badly by fuel prices due to hedging (buying fuel in advance). Here’s to another 33!

Southwest 737-200 Retirement | via A Sabre Geek