Travel plan idea blog

Blank pages in your passport and social networking for airlines

I don't know if it's big news, but a former US congresswoman was not allowed to board a South African Airways plan recently because she didn't have enough blank pages in her passport.

There are plenty of comments, including a bunch who say that Cynthia McKinney should have checked South Africa's immigration rules and that the airline did everything right. I'm in that crowd.

Searching for online opinions about airlines led me to this interesting article on the social networking battle between Virgin Atlantic and British Airways. Virgin Atlantic seems to be winning:

"With BA's more expensive seating, passengers now have the option to choose a better value-for-money airline like Virgin Atlantic. We do not charge for pre-assigned seats and have no plans to do so."

This statement has attracted 115 "likes" and 70 comments, many of which praise Virgin and/or criticize BA. The statement appeared on Virgin America's official Facebook fan page, which currently has 19,847 fans. The airline has also built up an impressive 34,123 Twitter followers. This compares with BA's 4,352 Facebook fans and 6,969 Twitter followers.

Posted by James Trotta at October 6, 2009 12:02 PM