Frequent flyer miles are a kind of currency. You can buy tickets or upgrades and pay for them in miles that you earned by flying. These earnings go untaxed.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) already wrote 10 years ago that there is no "federal tax liability by reason of the receipt or personal use of frequent flyer miles or other in-kind promotional benefits attributable to the taxpayer’s business or official travel" (Announcement 2002–18, p. 621).

If you win frequent flyer miles in a contest or a sweepstake, it is different. Prizes are taxable if their value exceeds $600 (€456).

Spanair - Spain's 4th largest airline and member of the Star Alliance - suspended all operations and canceled all flights on January 28, 2012 leaving over 30,000 passengers stranded. Two days later the airline filed for bankruptcy.

Many stranded travelers had to buy new tickets at other airlines - in particular Vueling, Iberia or Air Europa - offering them reduced fares. However, Iberia canceled 120 flights itself on January 30 due to a pilot strike.

It is very difficult to find someone in the plane who paid the same fare as you did.

It illustrates that ticket prices are opaque, which is partly due to frequent price fluctuations.

Although air fares are very dynamic, they do follow a cycle during the week. US airlines often launch seats discounted by 15-25% on Monday night.

Competitors match the discounts on Tuesday morning and by Thursday many sales have already expired. Therefore, you can often get lower

Airlines are quipping their aircraft with broadband capability. However, many passengers seem to enjoy the time away from being reachable and do not connect in-flight.

Moreover, they seem rather unwilling to pay for the service in addition to fees for booking the flight, checking a bag, having a tasteless meal, etc.

After its introduction in 2008, the share of travelers using in-flight Wi-Fi grew only slowly to 7% in 2011. According to In-Stat, passengers predominantly connect through smartphones and tablets.

"This is an emergency. We will shortly be making an emergency landing on water."

Passengers onboard a British Airways flight from Miami to London got the fright of their lives when they heard this announcement on January 16, 2012 at around 3 a.m.

It was a pre-recorded message that left the passengers in panic as they feared for their lives. Half a minute later, however, a flight attendant

The top-3 Google executives will always have a plane at their disposal. They have proposed paying $33 million (€26 million) for renovating the Moffett Federal Field, a joint civilian/military airport in California.

In exchange, they want to be able to use 2/3 of the floor space of Hangar One. This is a 198 feet (60 meters) high Naval Historical Monument, built in 1933 and once home to the US Navy's giant airships.

The Google executives want to house their fleet of 8 private aircraft in

When actor Alec Baldwin refused to shut off his cell phone on board an American Airlines flight, the crew kicked him off the plane. The flight was delayed by an hour.

It stirred a debate about the rules regarding electronic devices in the cabin. Many travelers fear the social complications of allowing cellular conversations on planes. Imagine that passengers around you disturb the relative silence in the cabin by making calls.

Travelers within the EU cannot shop tax free at airports. Only if their final destination is outside the EU they can.

It has been like this since 1999, but many people still think prices are low at the airport. In the UK, for example, no less than 60% of consumers believe that prices are considerably lower than in regular shops.

A ground pilot can simultaneously remotely fly a large number of personal planes (PPlanes) from a remote pilot station.

This concludes the Dutch National Aerospace Laboratory (NLR) from a major experiment recently carried out in a simulated environment.

The experiment is part of a project developing ideas for personal air

Is it possible to get the (lower) fares on airlines’ US web sites (with fares in USD) rather than their Dutch sites?

I have an American credit card and a house in Florida. However, each time I want to book with departure from Amsterdam I get the higher euro fares.
Rolf Koster

How do you share your travel experiences? Travel organization World Ticket Center asked this in a telephone survey among 650 customers. More than three quarters (78%) share their adventures orally with relatives and friends.

The mostly used internet channels are travel blogs (28%), holiday review sites (23%), own web sites (19%), internet forums (16%), and social media (14%).

Only 19% sends positive messages, mostly on travel blogs. The vast 

Estonian Air will start rewarding customers for not only flying, but also promoting its brand via social media.

It is the first airline to reward their passengers for completing tasks, like sharing reviews on Facebook or Twitter on deals and promotions. They can earn points through Estonian's Facebook App called AirScore.

Social media allow airlines to connect with their customers in ways that no other method can. Therefore, Estonian Air considers it useful to reward customers for helping to promote their brand through these media.