Donated Frequent Flyer Miles Provide 40,000 Flights for Afghan Refugees

Frequent flyer miles donated over a two-month period will provide around 40,000 flights for Afghan refugees, the Associated Press reported.

The Biden administration is considering doubling the number of miles available to refugees, and around 3,200 flights already covered by the donated miles have allowed Afghan refugees to resettle in communities around the U.S. from temporary housing at military bases, according to the AP. Miles4Migrants organized the donations, and the group has provided aid to refugees using donated airline miles and credit card points since 2016.

“Government resources are limited, and we knew that the American people wanted to support Afghans who were arriving and help them find safe homes,” Miles4Migrants Co-Founder Andy Freedman said, the AP reported. “That’s when we turned to the airlines.”

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Southwest to Cut More Flights, Lost Almost $75 Million During Last Round of Cancellation

Southwest airplane

Southwest Airlines announced Thursday that it would adjust its December flight schedule to adjust for ongoing labor shortages.

Southwest canceled over 2,000 flights on Oct. 10 and 11, costing the company over $75 million, according to Southwest’s Q3 earnings report.  The airline attributed the canceled flights to weather and air traffic control issues but later admitted to experiencing a labor shortage, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The airline expects to cut its Q4 flight schedule by 8% from 2019, compared to a 5% reduction the company initially planned for, according to the WSJ. The company also expects a decline in staffing compared to its historical average, according to its Q3 earnings report.

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Illegal Immigrants Fly American, Courtesy of Biden Border Policy

Airplane aisle during flight

About 14 separate families or groups of illegal immigrants boarded a flight Thursday at McAllen International Airport in Texas, the man in charge of border security during the Trump administration told The Daily Signal.

Mark Morgan, former commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said he watched from a nearby seat as the illegal immigrants boarded the American Airlines flight just after 3 p.m. CDT at the airport of the border town.

“By the eighth or ninth family is when I decided to take pictures,” Morgan told The Daily Signal on Friday. “I decided to take a video when I saw a large family with an infant child.”

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Radical Experimental Plane With No Moving Parts Wows Scientists

Some 115 years after the first powered flight, scientists have developed a radical new approach toward flying in the form of a small, lightweight and virtually noiseless airplane that gets airborne with no moving parts like propellers or turbine blades. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) engineers on Wednesday described successful flight tests at an indoor campus gymnasium of the unmanned airplane powered not by engines that burn fossils fuels but by ion wind propulsion, also called electro-aerodynamic thrust. The aircraft, called Version 2 EAD Airframe, or V2, weighs only 5.4 pounds (2.45 kg) with a wingspan of 16-1/2 feet (5 meters). “This is the first time that an airplane without moving parts has flown,” said MIT aerospace engineer Steven Barrett, who drew inspiration from fictional shuttlecraft from “Star Trek.” Electrical field strength near an array of thin filaments called emitters at the front of the wing ionizes air, meaning electrons are removed and charged molecules called ions are created. These positively charged ions are attracted to negatively charged structures on the plane called collectors. As they move towards the collectors, the ions collide with air molecules, transferring energy to them. This creates a flow of air that gives the plane…

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Sun Country Airlines Announces New Service from Nashville

suncountry

Sun Country Airlines announced it is growing its network with new routes and destinations, including new service to Nashville from Minneapolis/St. Paul. From Nashville, new service begins in November to Fort Myers, Miami, New Orleans, Orlando, and Tampa. If you book by August 22 you may take advantage of low introductory fares. Vacation packages and car rentals are also available in most of these destinations. You must purchase tickets 21 days in advance. Stated fares are for one-way, coach class travel. Other terms may apply. Sun Country Airlines is part of the Davis Family Holdings business empire in Minnesota, the Star Tribune reports. From Cambria quartz countertops to Davis Family Dairies to Sun Country Airlines, the Davis family owns and manages some of the state’s landmark homegrown businesses, the newspaper said. As of 2014, they employed 2,600 workers and raked in about $710 million a year in revenue, a figure that would rank the privately held business 38th among Minnesota’s 100 largest publicly traded companies. For years, the Davis operation was little known beyond southern Minnesota. That began to change in 2011 when the family engineered the purchase of Sun Country for $34 million. In 2014, the Davis family landed on…

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