Abbie Cheeseman

Abbie Cheeseman All things travel, transit & history

09/10/2026

Cross Border Xpress is the pedestrian bridge that lets San Diego travelers walk straight into Tijuana International Airport without touching the land border crossing. It opened in 2015 and now moves more than four million passengers a year, more than double what it handled before the pandemic, and a one way crossing runs about twenty dollars. You still need a boarding pass for a flight in or out of Tijuana to use it.

09/03/2026

Fifth freedom flights let airlines fly between two foreign countries, no ties to home. Ethiopian Airlines actually operates more of these than any other carrier, over 20 routes worldwide, largely because Addis Ababa’s elevation limits how much weight their planes can carry on takeoff, so tacking on a short extra leg like Seoul to Tokyo makes each flight more efficient. Emirates, KLM, and Qantas all run their own versions too, each for a slightly different reason. If you’re chasing a specific business or first class product, these routes are often the cheapest way to try it without flying anywhere near the airline’s actual hub.

This summer was 😍🥹✈️😭🌍🚞 I can’t believe this is my life. Thank you for watching my plane videos 🥹🫶
09/01/2026

This summer was 😍🥹✈️😭🌍🚞 I can’t believe this is my life. Thank you for watching my plane videos 🥹🫶

08/31/2026

London has six major airports ✈️ Because Heathrow has been capped for decades and its third runway isn’t expected until 2035, the overflow demand built out Gatwick, Luton, Stansted, London City and Southend into major airports of their own. London City is the youngest of the six, built into the old docklands in 1987 specifically so bankers could fly straight into the city instead of driving out to Heathrow. Together, the six now handle more than 60% of all UK air traffic.



08/30/2026

I still can’t believe I finally had the chance to fly on my dream plane: the 747!! And I did it in style with business class 🤩 I have a video coming about the experience but in the meantime enjoy my reaction to taking off 😄  #747

08/28/2026

Just to clarify: many airports/airlines prefer to use ground power units while on the ground regardless of APU status & depending on the airport/airline, they may or may not have air conditioning available at each gate. That little exhaust port near the tail of every plane you’ve flown on belongs to the Auxiliary Power Unit, a small turbine engine that runs the lights, air conditioning, and electronics while you’re sitting at the gate. It’s also what pressurizes the system that starts the main engines. When the APU breaks, ground crews have to use an air start cart to get the APU running.

08/27/2026

Sadly, Concorde was never actually painted in Braniff colors (that was an artist’s rendition). Braniff International is the only US airline to have ever flown Concorde, and the way they pulled it off is kind of wild. Because Braniff never actually owned the jets, ground crews at Dulles had to tape over the British Airways or Air France registration and re-register the plane as American just for the Dallas to DC leg, then reverse the whole process for the return flight. The route only lasted from January 1979 to May 1980 because it was rarely more than 20% full, and a one way ticket ran close to a thousand dollars. Braniff wouldn’t survive much longer either, going from one of America’s biggest airlines to bankrupt in a single day just two years later. Have you flown on an airline that doesn’t exist anymore?

08/26/2026

United just launched nonstop Newark to Ljubljana, Slovenia and Newark to Luxembourg City routes, the first ever nonstop US airline service to either country. Ljubljana hasn’t had a direct New York flight since 1991, and Luxembourg lost its own nonstop US connection in 1999, after decades as a surprisingly major gateway for budget transatlantic travel. Both routes are part of the biggest international expansion in United Airlines history, and eight of the ten new destinations announced will have zero competition from another US airline.

08/24/2026

WindBorne’s weather balloons (the ones you might catch on Flightradar24 under callsigns starting with HBAL) are feeding data to NOAA, the Navy, and the US Air Force, and the company has launched thousands of them since starting in 2019. Because they can shift altitude to catch different wind layers, a single flight can produce dozens of atmospheric profiles instead of the one reading you’d get from a normal weather balloon before it pops.

08/23/2026

Hollywood Burbank Airport’s terminal has been sitting about 250 feet from an active runway, less than a third of the FAA’s current distance standard, since 1930. The replacement project is called Elevate BUR, and it’s been talked about since 1988, when the airport hired an engineer specifically to help get a new terminal built. It took almost four decades of lawsuits and disagreements between Burbank, Glendale, and Pasadena before anyone broke ground. Have you ever flown through BUR?

Address

1 Saarinen Cir
Chantilly, VA
20166

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Abbie Cheeseman posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Abbie Cheeseman:

Shortcuts

Share

Category