Planes, Trains, and Automobiles: July 2009 Archives

One of my favorite airlines (Virgin Atlantic) had announced that they're joining forces with their spin-off little sister airline (V Australia), and allowing people to earn and use miles from either airlines' loyalty program. Huzzah! I guess. If I lived in Australia and liked to travel a lot to the West Coast and Europe then it'd be a great deal. Since I don't it's just a neat deal. Still, since Virgin Atlantic doesn't have a direct flight from the West Coast to Aussie-land, I can fly V and still get miles I can apply to another jump across the Atlantic at a later date. So all cool there.

In related, but only slightly related news, shamelessly copied from USA Today, Virgin America, which by the way is oppressing me by continuing to not fly to Denver, damn them, has been won a survey for best domestic airline by Travel and Leisure magazine.

One does wonder about the survey as it appears that one of the Top 10 domestic airlines is WestJet which is actually a Canadian airline and doesn't fly between any US destinations. I'm sure WestJet is a wonderful airline but I'd hesitate to call it domestic. Sure I guess I could fly from Honolulu to Yellowknife, and who wouldn't, but then I'm there in Yellowknife and all I have to wear is shorts and Billabong t-shirts. And I imagine that Yellowknife is a dress-up kinda town, and I'll just feel out of place.

At this point I'd probably have to worry about people writing impassioned e-mails about how I'm dissing Yellowknife, but since I doubt I've managed to get the readership numbers into double digits, I'm thinking I can sail right through this controversy.

If this keeps up and I'm going to have to look up what the Roman numeral is for fifty. In the long, and yet probably never to be concluded annals of Brits going on holiday overseas, getting blind-drunk, potted and sotted, and then doing something against the laws of man, nature, and/or God, we have a new entry.

Apparently a gentleman from Great Britain, the country that used to rule the world, or at least all the parts anyone wanted at one time, inherited a substantial sum of money. Like many people who come into a bit of unanticipated largesse he decided to take the heritance and have a nice vacation, after which I'm sure he was going to put the rest of the money in nice tax-deferred municipal bonds. So a holiday in Spain, Mallorca to be exact, a locale that manifests all those things that a proper Englishman longs for like sun, warm water, and tanned natives.

Spain also has booze. Our lucky inheritee decided to have a few drinks, and then from the sounds of it a few more and, well eventually he was discovered in an airport bar handing out wads of cash to anyone and everyone. And having a bit of a laugh, as they say. Besides the obvious issue as to why anyone would hand strangers cash, is the more interesting question as to what he was doing wandering around with $72,000 in cash and travelers' checks. Do people still use travelers' checks? Why?

This entry doesn't fit in the convenient and yet less than all-encompassing categories such as Passengers Behaving Badly and Airlines Behaving Badly, as the individual involved was neither an airline nor a passenger. Though he did work (and the operative word here is 'did', past tense) for US Airways, but they really had no involvement with the activities of their employee. The employee in question is, of course, the mental giant that was caught after smuggling a gun through security for a friend. The now ex-airline employee has announced that he is mortified, yes mortified, at his lapse in judgment.

I decided to rename the category formerly known as Airlines Behaving Badly to Airlines Behaving Abominably because it just sounds cooler. And in the case of Ryanair, well, they really deserve a category all their own, but in this case I'll let them share it.

In the latest, via USA Today, the airline in question, besides, of course, Ryanair is a low cost Chinese airline called Spring Airline, which would like to sell standing room only seats. Or something. I mean if you're standing you aren't sitting so you don't have a seat, right? So what would be the right term for the space where you stand while flying to exotic destinations? Stall? Booth? Cubicle? Death slot?

Ryaniar would like to follow suit, or precede Spring Air, it's all a little vague. But they want to sell you a place, maybe a rail that you can strap yourself too, much like mariners facing a hurricane back in the days of sail. Logistically, I can see some issues. Like you can pack a lot more people into the same area if they're standing then when they're sitting, but where does all the extra carry-ons go? When a plane has to ditch or crash land do the flight attendants pass out next-of-kin cards for the standees? The list goes on.