Author: Eliza

Typically we cover airlines and airliners here at AirlineReporter, but occasionally an opportunity in the non-airline[r] worlds pops up that we just can’t pass on.

So when the Museum of Flight here at our Seattle HQ announced that Doc, one of only two airworthy Boeing B-29 bombers, was planning to visit in mid-May, we jumped at the chance to see her up close. Even better, we got to take a short ride around Seattle.

The airplane arrived earlier this week (May 17). Its Star Wars-esque nose, four engines, and incredibly shiny fuselage made it easy to spot on the horizon. The pilots eased the bird onto the runway and taxied down to the Museum of Flight ramp as a crowd of onlookers gathered to watch.

While the B-29 was originally produced in Seattle, Doc is not a

It’s arguably the most iconic livery on the most iconic aircraft in service. It’s blue-and-white livery is instantly identifiable to both AvGeeks and those who view planes as simply flying buses.

Officially designated the VC-25 by the U.S. Air Force, two heavily-modified Boeing 747-200s have been in service since 1990.

By now, most AvGeeks know that any aircraft can be designated as Air Force One – the callsign is only active if the president is on board. Thus the modified 757s (officially C-32As) can also carry the callsign when the president is aboard.

The Seattle area sees C-32As fairly regularly, as high-ranking officials other than the president often visit the region, such as the vice president. The VC-25 hasn’t been in these parts since 2018, and we last wrote about a visit

I sometimes use my mom (who loves birds, but not really planes) to help guide what we cover on AirlineReporter. Typically if she mentions “Hey did you see this story about an airline?” we have a nice conversation about it, but that typically means it has been well covered and unless we have a unique opinion, we move on. So, it feels special when my mom brings up a story she saw, and I have a few thoughts to add.

If you missed it, Frontier Airlines has opted to ditch their customer care call center, while still providing online support – all in the name of bringing down costs. Unless you are new to following the airline biz, we have seen this sort of thing a few times now. An airline

Seattle-Tacoma International Airport added its 8th new international carrier since the pandemic began in 2020, as Finnair started service from Helsinki on June 2.

Finnair will operate the 9.5-hour flights three times per week on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays using an A330. The inbound flight will be numbered AY033, and the return flight to Helsinki will be AY034.

Finnair is also part of the oneworld alliance, allowing connections either onward from Seattle or Helsinki via the local partner airlines, including Seattle’s own Alaska Airlines.

Finnair’s European network connects 70 cities on that continent. SEA is the sixth U.S. airport served by Finnair; other American destinations include Chicago, Los Angeles,

Most of our AirlineReporting time and energy goes to this website and Twitter, but we also have a YouTube channel that we don’t want you to forget about. Over there we have some of our favorite window seat views, airport highlights, and other clips saved for your viewing pleasure. We’ve dabbled in some short video trip reports, like on JetBlue Mint and Finnair’s long-haul business class. There’s also some on-scene coverage of major airport infrastructure highlights, like Sea-Tac’s over-taxiway skywalk getting hoisted into place.

For fun, I lined up my three favorite takeoff videos from flights I’ve flown for the website. It was tough making the picks. Some strong contenders — like this Dreamliner #wingflex takeoff or this fine example of Newark parallel runway ops — didn’t make the cut.

This 787 takeoff view over New York didn’t make the toplist, but another Dreamliner takeoff did

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