It’s early in the week, but there are already some interesting travel stories out there.

CNN has an interesting look into the future of airport security. What does the future hold? Well, thermal lie detector tests and cloned drug and illness sniffing puppies, for starters. Yowza!

Worried about keeping clean on the road? MSNBC has a roundup of some very interesting products designed to keep you refreshed, germ free, and, well, less smelly.

Nuts About Southwest has a post with details about Southwest Airline’s long awaited Rapid Rewards Shopping. Today only earn double points when using the portal. Yay shopping!

Oh dear. TSA is a never ending source of, “Seriously???” moments. In the last year, stories ranging from hilarious to horrifying have appeared, and now the agency famous for its comedy of errors has struck again.

According to CNN, a TSA agent found a, shall we say, “personal item” in the luggage of a traveler. On the “TSA has searched your bag” paper, he wrote the woman a special note: “Get your freak on girl.” OMG. I mean, O. M. G. Can you imagine? It’s hideously inappropriate, offensive, disgusting….. and yet mildly hilarious. While you gasp in horrified laughter, you wonder what kind of idiot could possibly think this would be acceptable. And did he think he wouldn’t get found out? Has he done this before, and just not been caught?

The officer in question is facing dismissal, of course. But when the woman who received the note tweeted the pic to her followers, she said she wanted to raise the issue of what this means in the grander sense of things.

“As much as this is a funny and titillating story, when I put the note on Twitter for what I thought was a relatively limited audience, I was hoping it would open up a bigger conversation about privacy rights (or lack thereof) in post-9/11 America. It unfortunately hasn’t done that, and instead has turned into a media circus,” she said.

I think she raises a valid point. While personally I have had never had a terrible interaction with the TSA (just mildly annoying ones), there are clearly several bad apples that are creating issues for everyone else. Most of the agents are probably doing the best they can, but there seem to be many systemic issues flowing from the top down.

So, Readers, what do you think this says about privacy rights these days? Or is the idea that we have any privacy the biggest joke of all?

(P.S.: Home Warrior had an awesome name suggestion for this post, which was hilarious, but I just couldn’t do it: “Not-so Good Vibrations”. Hah! He is on a roll. Remember “Snakes on a Plane?“)

The Home Warrior recently sent me an article, saying, “You probably need to see this…..” He was right. Wow, was he right.

According to MSNBC, experts are forecasting a rise in airline fees for 2011. As in, they are going to start charging us a la carte for even more items than ever before. It’s not enough that we pay for checked bags, choosing our seat, food, pillows, blankets, talking to customer service people, etc. The fees that could be introduced this year will make us look back fondly on what used to be. Remember the furor over Spirit Airlines charging for carry-on bags? That could be the next step for major carriers. And allowing people to pay extra to board first (looking at you Southwest!!), and therefore get the first shot at the overhead space, is in effect the same thing and is already happening. You want to talk to an agent at the airport? Hand over your credit card.

According to this article, the global airline industry expects earnings from a la carte fees in 2010 to hit $22 billion. $22 billion!! I recognize that because I have Elite status on American I get out of a lot of these fees. But what about someone who travels for work once a month? They may not have status. How many businesses will curtail travel due to these extra fees, and how will that affect people’s jobs? I get that the airline industry is a tough one, and that for a long time the airlines have struggled to turn a decent profit. But isn’t there a line that shouldn’t be crossed? When do they start worrying about their passengers again?

If you’ve been around Road Warriorette for long, you have probably heard me touting the wonders of yoga. Feel better! Have more energy! Be more tolerant of your fellow passengers, especially during the holidays! Right now I am even more in the “yoga” frame of mind than normal, as I spent this past weekend in Chicago with my sisters and did several classes at their favorite studio, Imagine. This morning as I perused my favorite yoga blog YogaDork I found that I was not the only traveler doing yoga this weekend.  According to NDTV Movies, Madonna also spent the weekend doing yoga. On a plane. Not that I blame her–it must have been very frustrating to have landed and then be stuck on the tarmac for hours. Her fellow travelers were not so tolerant, though.

“It was bad enough having to wait, but then she started doing her yoga in the aisles. After about an hour, a bus came along and took her and her party of about 15 off the plane. The rest of us all had to wait for another two hours,” said a passenger on the plane.

I like the YogaDork comment from Barbara B: “I’m going to do yoga every time a plane is delayed now. All 15 of her entourage got de-boarded 2 hours before everyone else.” Hilarious!

And if you have a minute, check out this amazing video from a yoga studio in New York. I want to watch it every day.

By now, there is probably no way you haven’t heard the furor surrounding TSA right now. It is all over the national and local news, the blogs and message boards, and anywhere else travel is discussed. There are a ton of hilarious Youtube videos out there (my favorite: If you touch my junk I’ll have you arrested). I have gotten emails and comments from readers about it. But for those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, here is the summary.

Many airports now have full body scanning machines, aka the “strip-search scan” or “nudie-scan”, which they use during the security screening. Not all airports have them, and in the airports that do have them, not all passengers are screened in this way. The passengers that are selected to go through these machines, as opposed to the metal detectors, have the option to refuse. But if you do that, you get the new, “enhanced” pat down–”a hand-sliding pat-down that can include feeling a person’s inner thighs and buttocks,” according to MSNBC.

I have gone through the nudie-scopes, but have not had the pleasure of the enhanced pat down. This new procedure was implemented in October, but I didn’t realize how invasive it is until last week. Honestly, at first I thought everyone was freaking out about nothing. Until I read the news reports. The new style of pat down calls for agents to use the front or back of their hands and fingers to touch and press chest and groin areas of passengers, including the inside of a passenger’s legs to the thighs. And if you’re wearing a skirt or dress that won’t allow for full access, you could be asked to remove it in a private area for screening. Geez.

The email I got yesterday from a reader asks for my thoughts.

What your opinions of the new TSA policies? I am a bit put off by both the idea of the “strip-search” machine, and the “enhanced” pat downs. Have you experienced either?

My main concern with the two comes from being separated from my belongings, namely, my wallet. Have you any suggestions on how to keep my belongings completely safe? They say never to allow your items out of sight, but you know that doesn’t always work out. This whole fear of having my belongings lost or stolen is making me never want to fly again.

This is a two part question, and both parts are very valid. I am actually going to take the second part first. If you go through the full body scanner, you are only separated visually from your belongings for about thirty seconds. This is probably the same thirty seconds that your stuff is going through the scanner. Once you are through the machine, you are typically in a roped in area for a minute or so until the TSA agent lets you past. In all of the airports I have seen, you have visual contact with your stuff from this point on. So honestly, I wouldn’t worry about it too much. I also wouldn’t travel with incredibly valuable objects if you can avoid it, but I travel with my laptop and wallet every week and I have never had anything happen.

As far as the beginning of your email, I have a lot of thoughts and opinions. First of all, because I travel for work, I basically have no choice but to go through the full body scanner. Do I want to? No. Does it make me feel a little self conscious to know that someone is looking at an image of me? Yes. Am I going to pitch a fit about it? No, because my goal while traveling is to be as efficient as possible. When you spend as much time as I do in airports, you want to streamline the whole process in any way you can.

If I didn’t have to travel as part of my job, the whole situation would make me think twice about flying. Absolutely. But in the end, if I want to go on vacation, see my sisters, or do something else fun, a little discomfort is worth it to me. I do think these full body, open hand pat downs are extreme, and very likely unnecessary. If I had children, I would definitely be concerned, as they are not exempt from the screening.

For the people who are trying to boycott them, or participate in National Opt-Out Day tomorrow, I totally get it. Maybe it will catch someone’s attention and get some changes made. I’m not traveling for Thanksgiving, but next week I am going to Pensacola, and they do have the full body scanners there. I will be very interested in seeing how people are reacting to the whole situation.

And for another perspective, check out this post from our friend Flying With Fish about how this new policy is breaking down morale for TSA agents.

Readers, what do you think? Is it a violation of civil rights, or just a nuisance? The TSA keeps quoting studies that show that 80% of Americans are okay with enhanced screening techniques. Is that your experience?

The Home Warrior was flipping through the news this weekend, when he said: “Come here, you have got to see this.” The article from NBC News read:

“LONDON — British Airways apologized on Friday after a crew member mistakenly played an emergency message warning Hong Kong-bound passengers that the plane they were on was about to plunge into the sea.

About 275 passengers on a Tuesday flight out of London’s Heathrow Airport heard the message: “This is an emergency. We may shortly need to make an emergency landing on water,” NBC News reported.

“People were terrified, we all thought we were going to die,” passenger Michelle Lord, 32, told Britain’s The Sun newspaper, which first reported the incident.  “They said the pilot hit the wrong button because they were so close together.”

“I can’t think of anything worse than being told your plane’s about to crash,” the Sun quoted another passenger as saying.”

I believe the word you’re looking for is ,”Wow.”

One of the message boards I frequent posted this article yesterday. Apparently, on a Southwest flight a woman slapped her baby to make her stop crying. The baby girl also had a black eye, which was supposedly from a dog bite. A flight attendant held the baby for a minute so the father could get out of the row, and according to the video that was controversial (although I don’t really agree).  Southwest had authorities meet the plane once it landed in Albuquerque, but the family then boarded another flight. One of the worst quotes of the article:

“Asked if she thought it was okay to hit a 13-month-old baby, the woman nodded to police and said, “She’s my daughter,” according to the police report.”

The article states that several passengers were upset by the behavior. Uh, yeah! If I witnessed that on a plane I don’t know what I would do. I don’t have kids so I try hard not to judge the way people parent their children. But still–who slaps a child to make them stop crying? And not just a child, a baby. Seems like that would have exactly the opposite effect.  A black eye caused by a dog bite? Sounds suspicious to me, considering the behavior. If the mother would slap her child in front of a plane full of people, who knows what she would do in private? The flight attendant probably had a hard time handing a child back to her parents when she knew what would happen later.

So now I am sad. Sad for the passengers who had to witness that, knowing they couldn’t really do anything. Sad for the flight attendant. And of course, incredibly sad for that poor, poor baby.

Many people have been talking about this, and it has been all over TV and the internet. Although I recognize that this would have been distressing for some, I think the whole situation is hilarious.  I considered about doing some commentary, but Stephen Colbert said everything way funnier than I ever could. So watch, and enjoy. *Not safe for work, unless you have headphones.

Another day, another interesting travel story.

According to MSNBC Travel, Continental is going to start using “self-boarding” at some gates in Houston as a type of pilot program. The way it works is that there is a type of turnstile at the gate  that can read your ticket and then open and let you through to the jetbridge.  I’m envisioning something like what the MTA uses for the NYC subways, although who knows what it will look like. Honestly, it sounds totally fine to me. I’m not worried about security–the checkpoints won’t change. I’m not that concerned about the technology working–I’m sure there will be a gate agent nearby to assist with any issues. Do I think the airlines will see a substantial cost savings that they will then pass on to their customers by getting rid of the ticket agent at the door? Uh no.  The article says that this will help people board faster, but I don’t see how. One thing that could be a problem–what about when they are boarding the priority passengers and that one guy who’s not listening and is in group 6 tries to board? Maybe the turnstile just won’t open?

My interest in this article doesn’t really come from the substance. I am actually very interested to see how this experiment turns out.  What I found really interesting were the insane quotes used. First, the “against” side:

Isaac Yeffet, former director of security for El Al Airlines, thinks self-boarding is a bad idea. “It’s not a secret that the United States of America is the biggest target for terrorist organizations, especially al-Qaida,” Yeffet told msnbc.

“Instead of moving forward in security … we prefer to go backward” because we don’t want to inconvenience passengers, Yeffet said, adding that airline security is “an illusion.”

First of all, you still have to go through airport security. That doesn’t change. Self-boarding has nothing whatsoever to do with security.  Airline security is an illusion? Target for terrorists? Way to be scary but not add anything to the dialogue. Do you really think the person scanning your ticket is looking at your name? And the “pro” side quote isn’t any better.

“It’s a great idea,” aviation analyst Michael Boyd told USA Today. “Any reduction in human contact between employee and customer is good these days.”

“As long as you have someone to tell grandma where to stick the paper,” he added, “you’re fine.”

I think this guy is crazy. Either that, or it’s an incomplete quote. Who really thinks that a reduction in human to customer contact is a good thing? Has he never been stuck in automated system hell when he’s called the phone company?

What do you guys think about this? The self boarding, or the ridiculous quotes?

There have been many travel-related stories in the various news outlets recently. Here are some of the most interesting……and gross.

Apparently there is a country that works more hours than the US–Japan. They take even less vacation than we do.

I can’t even think about this, it is so gross. I’m not normally a violent person, but if this happened I would kick. someone’s. ass. Maggots falling from an overhead bin would freak me the f out. And that’s all I have to say about that.

Yet another story that makes you want to bring your own food onto a plane. (Just not rotting meat, see above.) Apparently the FDA thinks airline kitchens have issues. I never thought I would hear anything that made me re-think wanting to be in first class, but this……hmmmmm.

And now that I have contributed my ray of sunshine to the day, I will get back to work on my real job.

In honor of Earth Day on Thursday, April 22, all of my posts this week are going to focus on some aspect of traveling green. If you know of something I should write about, send me an email! RoadWarriorette@gmail.com

Two great news stories so far this week for green traveling! I love it.

First: Big news in the Star Tribune. Six airlines have promised the US government that they will NOT charge for carry-on luggage. This was a concern for many in Congress, because once one airline does it, the whole industry often follows (remember checked baggage fees? no free food on flights? charging for pillows and blankets? etc.). Thank you to Delta, American, Sun Country, JetBlue, United, and US Air for nipping this in the bud. (Not on the list? Continental and Air Tran to name a few.) How is this green travel news, you ask? Well, as green travelers it is always our goal to bring only what we need. If all travelers did that, less fuel would be used for starters. However, if you have to pay to bring your bag on regardless, people will start bringing more stuff and weighing planes down because they will just go ahead and check. This is good news on the financial front, too.

In USA Today’s Airport Check In, there is an article about Sea-Tac implementing a new program to get airlines to recycle more. Since not too many airlines recycle at all, this is a huge step. Not only are they encouraging recycling, they are saving money! A great concept, and one I hope takes off in other locations as well.