U.S. top cities for dining - video

Find out which are America's best spots in dining according to a Travel + Leasure poll:


Rank / Score
1. New Orleans, LA 4.58
2. San Francisco, CA 4.55
3. Seattle, WA 4.55

Qantas gets its first A380

Qantas is taking delivery of its first Airbus A380 superjumbo today (Sep 19).

The aircraft will depart from the manufacturer in Toulouse on Friday evening and fly via Singapore to Sydney where it will land on Sunday morning.

Qantas’ first A380 services will be from Melbourne to Los Angeles on October 20 and from Sydney to Los Angeles on October 24.

>> Painting of the first Qantas A380:

American Airlines named North America’s Leading Airline

American Airlines has been titled "North America’s Leading Airline" at the 2008 World Travel Awards, a travel industry award program considered as the “Oscars of the Travel Industry.”

American received the designation on Sept. 6 during a gala for North and Central America’s leading travel and tourism brands held at the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando.

Nearly 170,000 agents and travel professionals throughout the world were solicited for their input, with their votes determining the winner.

Last month, American became the first U.S. airline to offer its customers inflight Wi-Fi connectivity, introducing the service on nonstop flights between New York-Los Angeles, New York-San Francisco and New York-Miami.

This past June, American became the first U.S. airline to offer nonstop service between Chicago and Moscow when it started Boeing 777 flights to Russia’s capital.

American Airlines is currently the world's largest airline, operating a fleet of more than 1000 aircraft and serving over 240 cities in 40 countries.

Southwest Airlines goes cashless

As of September 9, Southwest Airlines will no longer accept cash for onboard purchases. If you want to buy a drink on board the airplane, the flight attendant will require your credit card, debit card, or your frequent-flier coupons.

The Dallas-based airline will equip all its aircraft with hand-held credit card devices in a move to ease the payments and reduce the hassle for flight attendants.

Southwest joins a growing list of carriers that have introduced plastic-only payments, including US Airways which introduced cashless cabins last month.