Recorded in the SFO Marriott at the start of a trans-continental travel week, we talk about the need to “re-balance” your frequent traveler elite status at the beginning of the year — should you re-up with your current airline or hotel, or move elsewhere? I’ve upgraded a good bit of my travel technology over the last couple of weeks. I talk about my new toys and the reason travelers invest so much time personalizing these bits of circuitry. One listener describes the inner workings of United Airline’s standby queue, while another listener tells some stories of traveling in the Far North. Here’s a direct link to the podcast file.
I don’t know what’s going on with the flying public these days. Last month, it’s a woman lighting matches to cover body odor. Last Sunday, it’s a 28-year-old woman getting drunk and then breaking damn close to every rule in the air on a United flight from Boston to San Francisco. According to the article in today’s USAToday, she:
Made mid-air cell phone calls
Joked about a hijacking — “‘I’m calling 911 because the plane is being hijacked”
Locked herself in the restroom with her dog
Tried to make her way to the front door while saying “‘I’m getting off the aircraft”
Yelled, cursed and spit on the flight attendants after being restrained
I’ve been flying between Chicago and San Francisco for almost a year straight, and have done the Boston to San Francisco route recently. It is a long flight, and if you haven’t planned ahead (or scored the rare upgrade), it’s a long time between meals. Something to keep in mind when the drink cart comes ’round.
I remember a similar incident on a flight from Cleveland to Chicago. One passenger was drunk and, on the approach to O’Hare, tried to leave early through the back door. The flight attendent and some passengers got the guy back into his seat. After landing, the Chicago police came on board, looked around and asked “Is anyone going to press charges?”. “I will,” said the flight attendant. Without a word, the cop grabbed the guy out of his seat, slammed him face first onto the floor of the plane, ‘cuffed him, and then dragged him down the stairs. And this was in the more gentle-and-sensitive pre-Sept 11th days. Keep that in mind then next time you’re ordering that double.
The shoe carnival — that degrading one-legged dance we do for the entertainment of TSA screeners across the country all because one guy tried (and failed) to light his shoe on fire some six years ago — has survived the introduction of the ShoeScanner in Orlando’s airport. Home of some of the worst TSA lines, Orlando Airport is piloting this new technology that is supposed to detect explosives in shoes. However, it doesn’t seem to have worked quite as advertised. According to a USAToday story, “Of 50 travelers who used the ShoeScanner in a one-hour period this morning in Orlando, 28 had to remove their shoes.”
Sounds like the ShoeScanner is going to take its place along side the GE “Puffer” machine as another waste of TSA budget. Prior to the August ‘06 “no liquids” ban, airports such as Tampa and San Francisco used the “Puffer” as an alternative to the shoe carnival. You’d walk into the compartment, jets of air would be blown at you, you’d wait 5-10 seconds while the machine analyzed the air for traces of explosives, and then the compartment door would open and let you walk through the metal detector with your shoes on. It was great — and fun too. However, with the “all shoes off” order that accompanied the “no liquids” ban still in effect, the SFO “Puffer” sits unused (but still plugged in), an obstacle to route around while in the TSA line, and a reminder of the amazing amount of tax money the TSA has wasted since its inception.
My first-hand experiences with last month’s travel delays were major topics in the last two podcasts. As you would expect, the delays inconvenienced the airlines too. United Airlines announced late Friday afternoon how much of an impact the December storms had on its operations. “During December,” United says, “operations were affected by severe winter snowstorms in (our) two largest hubs, Chicago and Denver. United and United Express cancelled approximately 3,900 flights in Chicago and in Denver.” This was enough, according to the Wall Street Journal, to drive United from a fourth quarter profit to “a modest operating loss.”
United wasn’t alone in happily bidding 2006 adieu. A front-page article in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal details the agonies of a December 29th American Airlines flight from San Francisco to Dallas that was diverted to Austin, TX because of thunderstorms over DFW. They sat on the ground at Austin for 8 hours before the captain docked the plane at an empty gate without permission.
“How does this happen?”, asked WSJ columnist Scott McCartney. “After years of cutting staff, carriers are less capable of handling crises — from not having enough telephone reservationists to handle calls, or extra bodies to empty toilet tanks or spare pilots and flight attendants to help out when delays stack up. Congestion in the air and at airports exacerbates the messes caused when storms hit.”
Recorded in the TravelCommons studio after hanging around home for the holidays. I talk about yet another tough struggle to get home when a pre-Christmas blizzard shuts down Denver, a couple of listeners share their trials of sitting next to travelers with killer bad breath, and we talk about new class distinctions among frequent fliers with the emergence of the Super Elites. Here’s a direct link to the podcast file.
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