Flying With Fish The Blog for Those Who Fly & Those Who Want to Fly Smarter

Today’s post on Flying With Fish is a guest post from Jasmine Decarie, author of mommyredefined.com. Jasmine, a marketing professional,  communicator, airline travel junkie,  runner (why do people run voluntarily?) and last but certainly not least … a Mom … offers up some great tips on flying with an infant.

There are lots of books with advice on raising children but I have found precious few on flying with a child.  I suspect that there are many reasons for this but one of them is likely that people generally do not want to travel with young children (or any children) due to cost and the PITA factor of flying in general. However, I am a frequent business traveler and, most importantly, I love to fly (yeah, I am weird) and I love to take my son with me.  I acknowledge that I am privileged enough to have this opportunity.  If you are like me and want to expose your child to flying at a young age, these posts are probably for you. I had to learn all of this through guesswork and piecing together random websites and in person advice so I figure I should consolidate and share what I have learned.  Here are some tips:

1)  If you can afford it, always buy your child a seat even when they are in the infant child seat bucket.  Trust me, even with a sleeping infant, if you hit turbulence there is no way that you can hold onto them.  My first trip with my son, age 3 months, we decided not to buy him a seat.  On the way back from Chicago we hit relatively moderate turbulence but even in that situation I could barely hold him so I bent over him (assumed the crash position) and my husband leaned over me.  It was crazy and one of the scariest 10 minutes of my life.

2) Make your child drink when the altitude changes!-  The most common reason that children scream on planes is because of the air pressure in their ears.  They cannot pop their ears like we can and they are super sensitive to pressure changes.  Give them a bottle up and down, unless they are asleep, and whenever the plane has to adjust altitude if they are awake. Even if they just suck a little it will pop their eardrums.  Maybe I was lucky but I followed this and had almost no problems with my son crying on planes even though he had a lot of ear infections.

3) Make sure your car seat is FAA certified.  This is essential.  If it is not, you cannot use it.  If it is, make sure the label is clearly visible for the flight attendants and I recommend printing out evidence of this from the company website.  Personally, I recommend Britax as they are extremely safe and almost all of them are FAA certified (note that this is solely based on my experience. I have no connection to this company).

4) When going through airport security in the United States you can travel with breast milk (already pumped I mean) and you should unless you are comfortable nursing on a plane.  However, you have to declare it to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screeners before it goes through the x-ray machine.  Just tell the x-ray attendant and trust me, if it is breast milk you are traveling with they will generally move you right along  Occasionally they will want to test the liquids but all this requires is waving a piece of paper over it to test for fumes.  I personally believe that there is zero risk to this and I raised my son almost completely organic for his first 3 years.

5) If you have status on an airline, only fly that airline.  This is especially true if you have status on United Airlines (I do) which allows you to sit in economy plus. You will appreciate the extra leg-room.  Do not be afraid to upgrade to first class either, ignore the looks, you earned your status and you should enjoy it as should your family.

I should note that this was all written as I flew across the country on United 503 from Boston Logan International Airport to San Francisco International Airport with a very cranky child behind me.  While I do not mind the screaming, I feel for his parents and if I can help anyone else not have this issue I consider it a job well done.

Wind to thy wings my fellow mommy flyers….

A joint Bahraini Parliament and Shura Council Committee was established on Monday to explore whether Bahrain’s national flag carrier, Gulf Air, should be severely downsized, sold, liquidated, or either liquidating or selling the airline, then establishing a new airline.

Gulf Air has struggled to become profitable, and despite the CEO’s pledge to not “request funding from the government to support the airline’s operating losses to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars per year,” back in May 2010. The airline requested and accepted US$1,000,000,000 in financial aid from the Bahraini government in October 2010 to keep the airline flying.   Now as the airline continues to fend off formidable competitors in the region, the airline struggles to remain operationally sustainable.

Each of the options under review by the Bahraini Parliament and Shura Council brings significant financial ramifications.  Reducing the size of Gulf Air’s operations could cost the company an estimated US$1.6-billion in costs associated with laying off redundant staff and terminating international contracts and partnership agreements   Should the Bahraini government seek to sell off Gulf Air, assuming there is a buyer, and establish a new national flag carrier, the financial burden is decreased to an estimated US$1.2-billion.

For now Gulf Air will continue to operate as usual, but the future of Gulf Air appears to be up in the air … just as the airline tenders its bid to begin operating a domestic route network within the borders of Saudi Arabia.

Happy Flying!

@flyingwithfish

Saudi Arabia has been rewriting the rulebook when it comes to airlines recently. As the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been working to privatize its national flag carrier, Saudi Arabian Airlines, the government has been seeking to create a more competitive airline landscape. Recently, after months of deliberation, The Kingdom opened up opportunities for foreign Gulf Region airlines to establish domestic route networks within Saudi Arabia, a stunning move, especially for such an insular nation.

Now, as Saudi Arabia determines its future airline needs and Saudi Arabian Airlines continues to expand its fleet, and work internally towards joining Sky Team, the landscape for the airline industry and the national flag carrier changes once again … the Saudi General Authority of Civil Aviation has announced it is opening up a competition for a license to establish a new national flag carrier airline.

The new national flag carrier competition is for an airline to operate both domestic and international flights.   This competition directly impacts Saudi Arabian Airlines, which flies domestic and international routes, and NAS Air, which flies domestic and regional routes.

It is unclear whether or not bidding is open to domestic or international competition, but this new announcement is clearly a shot across the bow of Saudi Arabian Airlines on the cusp of the airline achieving governmental independence.

Can two national flag carriers survive in Saudi Arabia?   Will the new airline receive similar subsidies to Saudi Arabian Airlines? Will the new airline be constrained by price caps and the political will of the Shura Council?  At this time no one seems to know … but watching to see what happens should be interesting.

Happy Flying!

@flyingwithfish

Yesterday Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) was stopped by a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) Transportation Security Officer (TSO) at Nashville International Airport after he alarmed passing through the walk through metal detector, while on his way to Washington DC for a Senate vote. Like all passengers who alarm walking through the TSA checkpoint metal detector, the TSO sought to resolve the alarm by patting Sen. Rand down, at which time the Senator refused the pat down … which is where the stories between the TSA and Sen. Rand diverge.

Sen. Rand’s story is that he was detained by the TSA in a small cubicle. The TSA’s story is that Sen. Rand was held until escorted from ‘sterile’ side of security by law enforcement.

The TSA’s policy on pat downs to resolve alarms is well known, as is the policy of the agency that all persons who refuse a pat down will be escorted from the security area by law enforcement.

Why did the TSA walk through metal detector alarm on Senator Rand’s knee? We may never know, he may have had something in his pocket and it appeared to be his knee by the way his leg was angled. The metal detector may have been set to alarm as a random security test by the agency and he was the lucky traveler to walk through at that time.

While Sen. Rand, son of Republican Presidential Hopeful and Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX), chose to take a stand at Nashville International Airport, challenging a TSA TSO, Supervisors and law enforcement, which makes for an excellent media sound bite, he seems to have forgotten the position he is in to effect a change on the Transportation Security Administration and its policy and procedure.

Sen. Rand sits on the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee. While the Department of Homeland Security plays political Twister navigating its way between the 108 House and Senate committees and subcommittees with jurisdiction over the agency, the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee wields significant power over the agency, and can impact significant political press on the TSA.

As a United States Senator, Sen. Rand need not stand in the security checkpoint of a major airport arguing with front line security officers that do not have the ability to change policy and procedure, he has the ability to take his seat on Capitol Hill and use the political power of the United States Senate to make his opinions heard.

Conversely, has the TSA TSO allowed Sen. Paul to forgo the TSA mandated pat down, he is just as likely to have begun tweeting that the TSA is ineffective and that TSOs ignored security procedure in allowing him to pass without a pat down.

If Sen. Paul truly wants to effect a change in the TSA, its policy, its procedure, he could start with these three things

1) Author a bill that requires the TSA to answer to a unified committee and be accountable

2) Place into the aforementioned bill a requirement that the TSA Administrator appear before the committee

3) Require that the TSA be transparent in the legal standing of its initiatives, policy and procedure

Every day common travelers can be upset with the TSA, and decide if they want to take a stand at a TSA checkpoint knowing it will not change the agency. Journalists can investigate the TSA and bloggers can write about the TSA daily. Lobbyist can try and sway opinions on the TSA … but a sitting United States Senator, especially one who sits on the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, who should know that he cannot circumvent the TSA on site, is not an every day common traveler … they are a traveler who can make a difference.

We, here in the United States, elect our Congressional Representatives and Senators to govern for us, make a change for us, and execute our political will. We do not elect our Congressional Representatives and Senators to make hollow sound bites that increase their public image but do nothing to make a change.

So Senator Paul, I suggest you start by reading these two articles, then get to your business on The Hill:

How The TSA Legally Circumvents The Fourth Amendment

The Legality Of The TSA’s ‘Enhanced Pat Down’ Authority

Happy Flying!

@flyingwithfish

Nearly a year ago a revolution was set in motion in Libya, grounding the nation’s two primary airlines, Afriqiyah Airways and Libyan Airlines.  At the time the Libyan Uprising began on the 15th of February 2011 Afriqiyah Airwaysand Libyan Airlines were two years into a planned merger … now three months following the end of the Libyan revolution the national flag carriers are looking at their futures.

Afriqiyah Airways appears to be ahead of Libyan Airlines in planning its international routes with the announcement that it should resume service from Tripoli to London’s Gatwick International Airport on the 1st of May 2012.

As the Libyan National Transitional Council seeks to restore Libya’s economy, international ties the need for an international airline is significant, and Afriqiyah Airways had played a unique role as an African airline. Afriqiyah Airways was created with the concept that the Northern Africa based airline would unite Africa’s business centers and link them to major European and Asian business centers.  The concept behind Afriqiyah Airways historically generated little origin-and-destination (O&D) traffic and its passenger, cargo and revenue were largely generated from connecting traffic.

A newly reshaped Libya is likely an ideal environment for the merger of Afriqiyah Airways and Libyan Airlines, given their fleet commonality; significant orders for new aircraft still on the books with Airbus and renewed interest from the European markets.

With Libya sitting on the largest oil fields in Africa, it is likely both Afriqiyah Airways and Libyan Airlines will see significant growth, and expansion over the next year, with high yield traffic … which is good news for Airbus, Bombardier and ground service providers.

Along with Libya’s national airlines getting back to the skies, British Airways and Qatar Airways will return to Tripoli. Qatar Airways will resume service on the 2nd of February and British Airways on the 1st of May.

Below is a graphic of Afriqiyah Airways’ route map prior to its suspension of service during the Libyan Uprising.

Happy Flying!

@flyingwithfish

Lost baggage is not fun for anyway. For travelers lost baggage means no clothes, no toiletries, possibly lost business materials or gifts. For airlines, lost baggage means their staff is subjected to irate travelers, a decrease is customer satisfaction and the added expense of tracking down lost bags, shipping and delivering lost bags, not to mention potentially having to reimburse a passenger for expenses.

All airline travelers know to label their checked bag, some rely entirely on an airline’s checked bag tag, the majority of travelers attach a luggage tag, some place a business card in the bag’s card slot … and these are good ways to identify your luggage … but … none of these ways help baggage handlers seeking a lost bag quickly identify and retrieve your bag.

Stand at a baggage carousel and count the number of black ballistic nylon bags you see on the conveyor belt, check and see how many bags have a red ribbon tied to the handle. Once you have watched the baggage go round and round think about the challenge a baggage handler at a major airline hub has when trying to identify and retrieve a lost bag described as a “22-inch black ballistic nylon roll-aboard.”

While no one wants to check there bags, there are times checked a bag is a must, makes sense or is just easier, and while statistically the number of lost bags compared to the number of bags that arrive at their destination as scheduled is minimal, lost bags occur.

So, how can you help yourself get your bag back quickly?  Make your bag stand out in a permanent manner, ensure your description of your lost bag is clear and unmistakable.

For me, all of my bags have my name written on every side in bright yellow paint marker, along with the drawing of a cartoon fish swimming (no, I don’t recommend you draw a cartoon of a swimming fish on your bags).  On three sides of the bag, along with my name (and fish), is my phone number and email address.   Placing my name on all sides, in a bright color, that is provides excellent contrast against a black bag, allows someone looking for my bag to immediately spot it, regardless of where or how the bag is stacked.

Labeling a bag clearly on one side is not effective. Bags stacked in a baggage room, on a cart, or cargo bin can be placed in any direction and blocked on any side. Take a look at a baggage cart from your aircraft window as a plane is being loaded, you can see bags go in every direction and are often facedown so their don’t roll on their wheels.

While all my bags are marked in flamingo pink tape, along with my name and contact info being clearly visible, I don’t rely on the pink tape to be an identification marker, other than using it as one more potential marking to catch someone’s eye while looking for my lost bag.

Some bags are fashionable, some are utility … when it comes to lost bags, even those with the most fashionable bags often wish they had opted for utility.

Below are two photos of my Mountainsmith Boarding Pass roll-aboard bag, which occasionally finds itself under the plane.

Happy Flying!

@flyingwithfish

Twitter is a great place to met fellow travelers, travel enthusiasts, travel experts and people with some great stories from their journeys … one place to meet these folks is during the weekly #TNI chat, brought to you by the folks at ZipSetGo.com, every Thursday at 3:30pm EST

Every week #TNI, or Travelers Night In, offers up 10 questions on a specific topic, some topics are more serious than others … and this week I’ve been asked to be a co-host for a topic that is sure to bring some hilarity to the travel community … Time Travel.

OK, there are some serious travel questions being asked this week that fit within the Time Travel motif, but there are also some great questions that will get you thinking about the convergence of travel and time.

So, fire up your Delorean, make sure you have some plutonium for your Flux Capacitor, and be sure to start a fresh hashtag column on your TweetDeck, HootSuite, Echofone, Radian6, etc, Twitter App to follow #TNI and join in!

If you have never participated in #TNI before, don’t worry, new comers are always welcome at their own pace and encouraged to jump right in.

Happy Flying!

@flyingwithfish

Journalists have a tough job seeking out and reporting on stories. Gathering information as a journalist requires dedication, resources, a thick skin and the ability to build trust with your sources that they will remain protected. In the United States, a free press has been able to report on tough issues independent of government interference and free from legal reprisal.

As the role and definition of journalism has evolved, the media has faced challenges in providing much needed consistent and accurate reporting. New media channels have exploded over the past decade, all fighting for traffic, to gain an audience and build a known voice among many voices and long established media outlets. Every day dedicated journalists cover all manner of topics, in print, on the radio, on TV, online, on Twitter and other formats, stories from the local flower show to political corruption all have their place … however the media’s ability to cover more challenging stories is about to face its biggest challenge.

What are the challenges journalists will now face when reporting on sensitive issues, issues of national security, homeland security or of a political nature?  As of last week the Department of Homeland Security officially  authorized the monitoring journalists in the United States, and their activities through the Department of Homeland Security ‘s (DHS) National Operations Center (NOC)’s Media Monitoring Initiative.

On the 15th of November 211, the DHS’s National Operations Center, in collaboration with the Operations Coordination and Planning (OCP) created the Social Networking/Media Capability (SNMC) program to allow the DHS to expedite its response planning and deployment of its operational divisions to respond to national security and crisis situation.  Under the SNMC the DHS was authorized to monitor publicly available online social media channels, including public blogs, websites, Facebook pages, Twitterstreams, under the auspices of giving the DHS situational awareness of informational superiority in a rapidly evolving situation.

With the creation of this new program, the DHS’s Privacy Office further expanded the programs ability to collect information, including Personally Identifiable Information (PII), through the Publicly Available Social Media Monitoring and Situational Awareness Initiative Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA).

Until now, information gathered under the SNMC was used in a limited capacity, however the Department of Homeland Security has expanded this to include the regular and consistent monitoring of journalists, and their social media channels. The official purpose of tracking journalists through social media due to journalists using  ”social media in real time to keep their audience situationally aware and informed,” which can assist the DHS in “[identifying] an individual to be directly or indirectly inferred, including any information which is linked or linkable to that individual.”

As the Department of Homeland Security moves its social media monitoring of journalists into a fast paced, real-time, continual tracking system, rather than a system devised to monitor developing situations, the agency will be able to use gleaned information to push its boundaries into seeking information not available in public social media spaces.  The DHS’s move to continually monitor journalists and their activities through social media will make sourcing information challenging and leave social media content potentially open to misinterpretation or leverage the intimidation of a journalist.

Does the Department of Homeland Security, the parent agency of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), really want to squander it technological and human assets continually monitoring a journalist discussing their favourite deli meats, their kid missing the school bus and their love of a baseball team?  These resources, while valuable in situations where situational awareness is requires, are ineffective while reading the day to day personal tweets and blogs of journalists when a stated goal of the agency’s continual monitoring of journalists’ social media channels is to seek out “persons known to have been involved in major crimes of Homeland Security interest.”

Benjamin Franklin, a Founding Father of the United States, is famously quoted as stating

“Those who would give up Essential Liberty, to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety” before the Pennsylvania Assembly on the 11th of November 1755.

Well … it turns out maybe Benjamin Franklin was correct, maybe those of us in the United States deserve either Liberty nor Safety since we have given up our essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety.

Happy Flying!

@flyingwithfish

The costs of owing and operating a private jet, or corporate jet, are extensive. Private jets are not only costly to purchase or lease, but these aircraft also incur the costs of servicing parking, staffing, fuel, landing fees, etc, are all expensive … and now Italy plans to make it prohibitively more expensive for those flying into Italy in an effort to fill its empty coffers.

The Parliament of Italy has approved a new tax on private and corporate jets that goes beyond expensive and moves into the realm of “creating an anti-business environment” … or in layman’s terms, entering the realm of absurdity. Italy’s new tax, expected to go into effect later in the year, would tax large corporate jets as much as €300,000 for being on the ground in Italy for more than 48 consecutive hours.

While the Italian Government hopes this new tax on private aircraft will generate an estimated €39,000,000+ annually, the reality is this tax will likely force aircraft operators to drop passengers at their destinations in Italy then depart for airports outside of Italy as a cost saving measure. With flying times from Milan to Lyon, Rome to Split, Palermo to Tunis, all under an hour, positioning aircraft outside Italy while inconvenience would offer aircraft owners and lessors a considerable cost savings, even when all other costs are factored in. In the long run, aircraft can also avoid Italy’s excessive taxes by departing the airport less than 48 hours after the aircraft had arrived, fly outside of Italian airspace, then return to the airport to restart the 48 hour clock.

Italy will find itself sending revenue out of Italy, rather than bringing it in, as private aircraft will depart destination airports to be serviced, fueled and parked at airports outside of Italy. Italy’s tax is likely to be a boon for airports in France, Switzerland, Tunisia, Croatia and Austria rather than being a much needed revenue stream for the government.

The tax on aircraft will be a sliding scale, for both fixed wing and rotary wing aircraft. Aircraft operated by Governments, on emergency medical or humanitarian aid missions or those operated by a commercial air operator’s certificate, exempt from the tax

Happy Flying!

@flyingwithfish

The personality of airlines in the United States has changed dramatically since the golden age of airline travel. Airline travel was once a luxury, following the 1978 Deregulation Act legacy airlines sought to differentiate themselves from each other and the new upstart airlines that were coming into existence.

In an industry where customers began seeking the cheapest options and viewing airlines as a commodity, some airlines chose to not only focus on what they offered professionally, their aircraft and their route networks, some chose to focus on getting their passengers to laugh.

While many U.S. airlines turned to celebrity endorsers and celebrity cameos following the deregulation of airlines, TWA’s use of Peter Sellers in a series of ads highlighting the airline’s “European Service” in the United States stands out as one of the most creative ad campaigns that kept viewers in stitches while burning the image of TWA into their minds.

Below are three of my favourite TV ads from TWA featuring Peter Sellers … if you don’t know who Peter Sellers go search him on Netflix and be prepared to laugh.

Happy Flying!

@flyingwithfish