Exhibits

Grateful Dead

gets a reprieve

The Grateful Dead exhibit at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland has gotten a reprieve. The exhibit opened in April and was due to wrap up by year’s end. Now the rock hall says the exhibit, The Long, Strange Trip, has been extended through March 24.

The exhibit features manuscripts, handwritten notes, five Jerry Garcia guitars, a custom-painted drum kit and promoter Bill Graham’s “Father Time” robe.

Several members of the Grateful Dead have toured the exhibit and participated in related programs, including Mickey Hart, Donna Jean Godchaux, Tom Constanten and Bill Kreutzmann.

The Grateful Dead were at the epicenter of the sweeping culture of San Francisco in the 1960s.

Airlines

Spuds sub for people in Wi-Fi tests

Engineers at aircraft maker Boeing are using an odd mix of high and low-tech tools as they strive to iron out weak spots in onboard wireless Internet signals. The engineers needed full planes to get accurate results during signal testing, but they couldn’t ask people to sit motionless for days while data was gathered.

Boeing spokesman Adam Tischler says that’s where potatoes come into the picture: Turns out that because of their water content and chemistry, potatoes absorb and reflect radio wave signals much the same way as the human body. So, Boeing engineers put sacks of potatoes in seats to stand in for passengers.

Boeing says the work has greatly improved Internet connectivity on its planes.

New service

•  American Airlines will add two new routes between Miami and the Caribbean in the spring. The airline will start Saturday flights between Miami and both Martinique Aime Cesaire International Airport and Pointe-a-Pitre International Airport in Guadeloupe on April 6.

American also said it will add service to Curitiba and Porto Alegre, both in Brazil, from Miami in late 2013.

•  JetBlue Airways has announced its intent to expand its service between Fort Lauderdale and Colombia by adding daily nonstop flights to Medellin beginning in June. JetBlue already serves Bogata via FLL.

•  Two airlines have begun nonstop seasonal service between Key West and the Northeast.

Delta Airlines is offering flights from New York’s LaGuardia Airport daily through Jan. 5. Those flights also will run each Saturday from March 2 through April 6. Key West airport officials say the 1,211-mile flight is the longest commercial route ever to serve the city.

Daily U.S. Airways flights from Washington’s Reagan National Airport are being offered through Jan. 5. Those flights will continue each Saturday through April.

Southwest will begin daily service between New Orleans and Key West on March 9.

All smiles now

Cathay Pacific Airways and its flight attendants’ union, which threatened a labor action that included not smiling at work if a labor deal couldn’t be made, have come to terms with Asia’s biggest international carrier. The union represents more than 5,800 of Cathay’s 9,000 cabin crew.

Miami Herald

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