Month: June 2026

Over the past several months, Southwest Airlines has undergone some high-profile changes as the carrier looks to boost profits and compete with legacy carriers like Delta, United, and American.

Some of those changes have obviously been less popular than others, but it sounds like Southwest has changed its mind on one of the more unpopular changes following some customer feedback.

Southwest’s ‘Customer of Size’ Policy

Southwest has long had a policy for plus-size passengers, called the Customer of Size policy. The policy helps accommodate larger travelers who may need to use more than one seat on their flight.

Under the previous policy, plus-sized passengers could either pay for an extra seat up front with the option of receiving a possible refund on the ticket later if the flight is not full, or they could request a free extra seat at the airport.

That policy, however, changed back in January as Southwest began forcing all plus-sized customers to buy their extra ticket in advance and  “pay any applicable seat fee.”

“To ensure space, we are communicating to Customers who have previously used the extra seat policy that they should purchase it at booking,” the airline said in a statement.

While refunds could still be obtained after travel, eligibility for those refunds would now depend on whether or not both seats were in the same fare class.

Customers Were Not Happy

Following the change, customers were not happy, with one travel expert warning that the policy was going to negatively impact everyone, from fellow passengers to Southwest employees.

Jason Vaughn, a travel agent who runs Fat Tested Travel — a travel site aimed at plus-size travelers — explained that under the original system, there was no downside to preemptively buying a ticket, as larger passengers would be refunded if their seat was not necessary.

However, that has now changed, which will result in more plus-sized passengers simply trying their luck with a single seat that they may not fit in.

“I think it’s going to make the flying experience worse for everybody,” he said via the Associated Press.

Obviously, this negatively impacted the other passengers sitting next to the plus-sized passengers and posed extra logistical challenges for flight attendants and gate agents.

Southwest Changes Its Mind

After receiving criticism for the policy change, Southwest has decided to reverse course and will no longer require plus-size passengers to purchase an extra seat in advance.

Under the budget carrier’s revised rules, which were announced last week, Southwest gate agents will now arrange a free second seat for passengers who need the extra room on flights where two adjoining seats are available.

In a statement to CBS News, Southwest Airlines said that the change aims to provide “a more consistent and seamless experience for customers who require an additional seat.”

Plus-size passengers are still encouraged to book an extra seat in advance, which would then be refunded if it is not necessary.

After a drama series took Netflix by storm and reached No. 1 on the TV chart, fans have been waiting for new episodes to be added. Now, season 4 of Sullivan’s Crossing is finally coming to the streaming service soon.

‘Sullivan’s Crossing’ Season 4 Is Coming to Netflix on June 30

According to Kasey Moore from What’s on Netflix, season 4 of Sullivan’s Crossing will be arriving on Netflix on June 30. The latest chapter in the show’s ongoing story, which is based on a novel of the same name by Robyn Carr, consists of nine episodes. It features the popular stars, Morgan Kohan, Chad Michael Murray, Tom Jackson, and Andrea Menard. The romance drama series focuses on a neurosurgeon named Maggie Sullivan. After moving back home following a lawsuit caused by her former business partner, she gets involved with the handyman Cal Jones.

A May 2026 What’s on Netflix article quoted The CW’s official synopsis for season 4 of Sullivan’s Crossing. “In Season 4, Maggie Sullivan’s life at the Crossing is finally taking shape having decided on a new direction for her career and a renewed commitment to Cal. That is, until Maggie’s ex-husband, Liam (Marcus Rosner), arrives with a shocking revelation which only upends Maggie’s life once again and causes Cal to question whether Maggie will ever truly be able to leave her past behind.”

Earlier seasons of Sullivan’s Crossing have been mammoth hits on Netflix. In July 2025, a Forbes article stated that “Sullivan’s Crossing has been planted at #1 for a while now.” In addition to being a hit in the United States, the series was also embraced globally. More recently, in February 2026, Collider reported that the show had reached No. 6 on Netflix’s global TV chart.

Given its past success, it should be no surprise that the anticipation for new episodes of Sullivan’s Crossing to premiere on Netflix has been fierce for months now. In July 2025, What’s on Netflix was already reporting that the series’ fourth season would arrive on the streaming service. Remarkably, that was long before the season even premiered on The CW, which didn’t happen until March 2026.

When you think of the James Bond film franchise, a few signature hallmarks likely come to mind. The shot of Bond through the barrel of a gun, the classic instrumental theme song and the various one-liners and humorous comments from the leading man.

Another aspect of the Bond films that has defined the series? The iconic theme songs, featuring some of the biggest artists in all of music.

Madonna, Duran Duran, Sam Smith, Adele and Billie Eilish are just some of the artists to create Bond themes over the years, with Lana Del Rey’s “First Light” featuring in the recently released 007 video game of the same name.

Today, fans endlessly speculate on who will make the next James Bond theme, but one iconic band helped usher in the contemporary era of the franchise with their all-time classic.

Paul McCartney’s Iconic, Timeless Hit Song

On June 1, 1973, Wings would release “Live and Let Die,” the theme song for the James Bond film of the same name. The song was a smash hit for Paul and Linda McCartney, who worked with legendary Beatles producer George Martin to create the track.

“Live and Let Die,” the first rock song to open a James Bond film, peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Top 100 and topped both the Cash Box Top 100 and the Record World Singles Chart. In the United Kingdom, the song peaked at No. 9 on the charts.

It was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song, the first James Bond theme to receive such an honor. Wings didn’t win for “Live and Let Die” that year, but three Bond themes have taken home the award. Billie Eilish’s “No Time to Die” did so most recently in 2022, making her the first person born in the 21st century to receive an Oscar.

During an episode of his “A Life in Lyrics” podcast, Paul McCartney broke down the lyrics and meaning of the song. “I didn’t want it to be, now you got a gun, so go out killing people,” he said.

“I just wanted it to be ‘let it go’. Don’t worry about it. When you’ve got problems and everything, just live and let die — to hell with it.”

McCartney has also said that reading Ian Fleming’s book (on which the film was based) helped him get in the headspace to write an appropriate song for the movie. He wrote about his experience making the song and immersing himself into the character in his 2021 book “The Lyrics.”

“It’s a real page-turner,” McCartney said of Fleming’s second Bond novel, originally released in 1954. “I just spent that afternoon immersing myself in the book, so when I sat down to write the song, I knew how to approach it.”

The Legacy of ‘Live and Let Die’

McCartney also said that the idea of writing a song for a James Bond movie was something he saw as an “accolade,” and that he “always had a sneaking ambition to do it.”

“Live and Let Die” remains one of Wings’ most iconic songs, and McCartney continues to play it on his own solo tours to this day, complete with bombastic pyrotechnics to match the mood of the film. Guns N’ Roses covered the song in 1991, and their version was nominated for a Grammy.

“I thought it was pretty good, actually,” McCartney said of the GNR version. “I was more amazed that they would do it, this sort of young American group.” He added that the cover made him “very happy,” and that “I always like people doing my songs … it’s a great compliment.”

The song has stood the test of time and is seen as a an all-time great James Bond theme. We’ll see if the next film’s theme song is able to live up to the legacy.

Monday marks the 35th anniversary of the death of one of Motown’s greatest performers: David Ruffin of The Temptations.

Ruffin passed away from a drug overdose on June 1, 1991 at the age of 50. More than three decades later, the Mississippi-born singer is remembered for a storied career as well as the personal demons that led to his early demise.

An all-time soul legend

During his run as The Temptations’ primary vocalist, Ruffin led the way on hits such as 1965’s “My Girl,” the group’s first Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 and one of the greatest love songs of all time. That same year, he was the lead singer on two more hits, “Since I Lost My Baby” and “My Baby,” and went on to serve the same role on “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg,” “Beauty Is Only Skin Deep,” “(I Know) I’m Losing You,” and “I Wish It Would Rain,” among other works.

However, during his time with The Temptations from 1964-68, Ruffin’s issues with drugs began to surface, ultimately leading to his departure from the group. While he would go on to have solo success, scoring multiple top 10 hits, Ruffin would not be able to overcome the problems that plagued him throughout his life.

A tragic end

On June 1, 1991, Ruffin, who had faced a slew of drug and legal issues over the years, was found passed out in a crack house in West Philadelphia, according to authorities.

A friend drove Ruffin to the hospital, but doctors were unable to revive him and he was eventually declared dead of a cocaine overdose. Ruffin’s death was ruled an accident.

“He walked in the line of fire,” Ruffin’s then-girlfriend Dianne Showers said at the time. “I asked his ex-wife and daughters a lot of times to have him committed somewhere for approximately two years. He usually denied that he was doing anything.”

A lasting legacy

Ruffin, who was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame two years before his death in 1989, was ranked 66th on Rolling Stone’s 2023 list of the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time.

“Bruce [Springsteen] is just one of many great singers in awe of Ruffin’s distinctive sandpaper tone, a vocal texture that countless soul and rock musicians have envied in the peak Motown years and afterward,” Rolling Stone wrote. “On hits like “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg,” “Beauty Is Only Skin Deep,” and “My Girl,” Ruffin was the earthbound anchor for the Temptations’ heavenly harmonies, the guy whose flawed humanity enriched their greatest love songs. “I know you wanna leave me,” he sang, with a singular rasp that guaranteed we never would.”

On June 1, 1998, Nintendo released an RPG title that would go on to become one of the company’s most polarizing games ever.

Quest 64 was originally released on the Nintendo 64 and is widely credited as the first role-playing game released in North America for that console. The Nintendo 64 had been released two years prior, and was generally known for its popular Super Mario games, such as Super Mario 64 and Mario Kart 64.

The console’s unique controller and increased gameplay capabilities made it a perfect fit for these innovative Super Mario titles, and that became a huge part of Nintendo’s marketing for the console. However, by 1998, the company was ready to branch out and release some new, original titles on the Nintendo 64.

Quest 64 was one of these games; in many ways, it was something of an experiment for the publisher. Nintendo hadn’t released any RPGs on the console yet in North America, and they already had Mario Party scheduled to come out later that year, so they needed an original title.

The game was a moderate financial success, with plenty of fans purchasing it just to test out the new console’s RPG capabilities, but critics were surprisingly harsh on the title. It received a score of 54% on popular review aggregator GameRankings, with critics generally praising the graphics but calling the story and gameplay mechanics underwhelming.

In their review, GameSpot wrote: “Quest 64‘s individual puzzles and challenges are similarly straightforward. Go to Town #1. Converse with townspeople. Discover that there’s a villain scaring everyone and making it impossible to get through Forest #1 to Town #2. To boot, he’s stolen Unique Elemental Magic Item #1 from Lord #1.”

The general consensus was that Quest 64 checked all the boxes for a successful RPG but lacked the ambition and creativity to make it stand out among the rest. Perhaps audiences’ expectations were simply too high, given the massive success of Nintendo 64’s prior successes, but Quest 64 quickly became irrelevant.

Nintendo had even considered making a sequel following the game’s financial success, but Quest 64‘s reputation quickly soured to the extent that a follow-up just didn’t make any sense. There has been a strong effort to reevaluate Quest 64 in recent years, with modern audiences claiming that it was misunderstood by contemporary critics, but fans’ opinions still remain split.

Over the years, Delta Air Lines has emerged as one of the best and most consistent airlines in terms of customer satisfaction, but it sounds like that customer satisfaction is at risk in one of the airline’s most important routes.

This week, an internal memo warned pilots of plummeting customer satisfaction on one of its key routes and offered support and guidance to those pilots as the airline looks to boost customer satisfaction once again.

According to the memo, the warning comes after Delta’s Net Promoter Score (NPS), which measures customer satisfaction, has fallen significantly on the route.

How Customer Satisfaction is Measured

For decades, airlines have used NPS to measure customer satisfaction internally. If you’ve ever been asked how likely you are to recommend an airline on a scale of 1 to 10, then you have probably taken part in an NPS survey.

Airlines do not typically publish this information publicly as it is sensitive commercial information, but it does allow the carriers to test the impact of changes and initiatives internally.

“NPS has become increasingly important for the aviation industry as it allows airlines to quietly test whether customer investments are worth the money, or, conversely, whether they can make cutbacks without customers noticing in terms of satisfaction levels,” Mateusz Maszczynski wrote for PYOK.

Obviously, this metric can also inform an airline if there is a problem or if its performance is lagging behind other carriers, as seems to be the case with one of Delta’s most important routes.

Delta Issues Warning

Last week, trusted aviation industry insider JonNYC shared a leaked memo on X in which Delta warned its pilots of falling customer satisfaction on its transcontinental service between New York JFK and Los Angeles.

As the memo explained, this route is important to Delta not just in terms of the revenue it represents to the company, but also in terms of the visibility and the “high-profile” customers.

“We’d like to take a moment to talk about JFK–LAX and LAX-JFK – two of the most important markets we serve and routes that consistently carry high expectations – from our customers, from Delta and from all of us who operate it. Together, JFK–LAX–JFK represents one of the top revenue markets in Delta’s system and stands as the largest domestic market in the U.S. by seat capacity,” the leaked memo reads.

“In addition, this route carries a high level of visibility, with a significant presence of high-profile customers, business travelers, and social media influencers. Customer experiences on these flights are often shared widely and in real time, further amplifying the impact of every interaction.”

The memo acknowledged that the route is more prone to delays than other routes, which could impact customer satisfaction, adding that these delays are often “not driven by pilot performance or flight deck decision making.” Still, the airline warned that “the impact is real,” adding that “because these are premium, high revenue markets, those gaps matter.”

“The best way our pilots can help is simple: Remain focused, as you always are, on Delta’s Impactful Behaviors – Greet Me, Recognize Me, Be Kind to Me and Inform Me – to ensure every customer interaction is kind, attentive, appreciative, and informative. In particular, it’s proven that our NPS scores improve significantly during a service disruption or delay when our pilots provide timely updates and engage positively with our customers,” the memo said.

If this is a route you fly regularly, it’s worth noting that Delta has identified it as an area in need of improvement.