Georgie Boy

Obscure trivia is not my favorite, but when you can solve it with the crosses (and maybe a guessed letter or two), it's fine; and when those crosses are also clever wordplay, it more than makes up for it. Crunchy, but in a good way. Took about 50% longer than my (recent) Saturday average. Fitting, I think, that my 1000th in a row should be a little tougher than expected :)

I don't know if Asiana is really competing with Korean Air anymore, they've been working on merging since 2020. Asiana will become a subsidiary of Korean Air very soon (US DoJ actually approved the deal today), and will cease operations/be fully absorbed in 2026.

Hardest Friday in a long time. Way over my average. Loved it.

"Frequent flier" is all but frequent - it's almost universally "flyer." But that's pretty inconsequential here, kudos on an excellent puzzle.

I had all of them as PH, and it wasn't accepted, so I went to change them all to F... but only got about halfway when the gold star popped up. Weird. Anyway, cool puzzle with some real fun clueing!