For fun, I registered More Than Points with www.quantcast.com to understand who the readers of this blog might represent.
The results were not surprising as frequent fliers:
- a largely male audience
- an older age group
- no kids
- above-average income
- graduate degrees
Older males without kids in households with good income, and a good education. Traveling is apparently not conducive to having kids, but you can make decent money if you’re willing to make the sacrifice. Most folks who currently travel have also had the time and money to spend on a higher education - perhaps we are doing it to pay off the loans :-)
Data is good.
If you didn’t know already, Delta has a blog and a sense of humor! When traveling, you need patience and a good sense of humor. It helps to understand everyone is human, including the airlines.
Enjoy!
Upon landing, you notice the McDonald’s at your destination airport is closed. Just one of those days.
I’ve downsized my Tumi carry-on just so I could fit it vertically in a 737 overhead luggage compartment. I will do whatever it takes to avoid checking in my luggage. If you fly as often as I do, you will go that extra mile to minimize the amount of time you spend waiting….for your luggage, the airplane, taxi, in line at the airport. Not having to check-in luggage is a HUGE time saver.
But the best reason NOT to check-in luggage is you never have to worry about the airline misplacing it. Hopefully you’ve never had to experience having your luggage lost and the airline representative telling you, “We’re not sure what where it is.”
I’m not certain, but I would guess the majority of flyers are reunited with their lost luggage (even if it’s after the vacation), but there are people that never find their luggage. Do you ever wonder what happens to the luggage that isn’t taken home?
Well, wonder no more because your long lost luggage could be on sale in a warehouse located in the sleepy town of Scottsboro, Alabama. That’s right - BBC News ran an interesting article on a company, Unclaimed Baggage Center (they didn’t win any awards for originality) that buys luggage from the airlines after 90 days and puts it up for sale.
Some interesting quotes:
“We had a 19th Century full suit of armour, an underwater camera from Nasa, Egyptian artefacts and props from movies,” says Brenda as she proudly stands next to a display case that holds a puppet from the Jim Henson film, Labyrinth.
One woman discovered $1,000 (£500) hidden in the lining of a case she bought for pocket change, while another found out that the glass vase she had bought as a trinket was actually worth a small fortune.
It’s enough to attract a million visitors a year.
If you lose your luggage or forget your book in the backseat of an airline, it’ll probably end up here. I guess you can always take a trip to Scottsboro if you never get your luggage back. Who knows - you may find something better.
First of all, let’s agreed we spend more than enough time sitting in traffic. Thankfully, as a road warrior, I probably spend less time commuting (but more time in a hotel) than someone who may drive to work everyday. Still…
USAToday.com says:
Business travelers who rent autos often waste an average of 1½ hours per trip stuck in traffic, getting lost and waiting to pay tolls, according to the survey, which Avis (CAR) is releasing this week at the National Business Travel Association’s annual convention in Boston.
More than 80% of 6,300 Avis customers who responded to the survey say they spend an average of 44 minutes stuck in traffic during a three-day business trip. At least half of those who responded say another half an hour is wasted getting lost, and 12 minutes go down the drain while in line to pay tolls.
You can follow some common sense guidelines to minimize traffic delays such as working well past rush hour or booking hotels as close as possible to your client destination.
If you happen to work in NYC, avoiding traffic might be a little difficult especially when traveling to / from Newark or JFK airport, but Travel Zoo now offers you another alternative…HELICOPTER transfers to and from the airports in just 8 minutes.
If you have the cash to spare here are the routes:
- $99 – Downtown Manhattan Heliport (JRB) to/from JFK
- $99 – Downtown Manhattan Heliport (JRB) to/from Newark
- $99 – East 34th Street/Midtown Heliport (TSS) to/from JFK
- $99 – East 34th Street/Midtown Heliport (TSS) to/from Newark
Go ahead, be a celebrity, but make sure you can expense it first!
Note: This is not an Onion article - this was reported in several more reputable newspapers (Chicago Tribute and NY Times)
It’s a bit strange this incident happen last fall and was only recently reported, yesterday.
Apparently it happened in daylight at 4:30pm, right before sunset, in Terminal C, Gate 17 and was first spotted by a United ramp worker who was directing traffic at the gate.
A flying saucerlike object hovered low over O’Hare International Airport for several minutes before bolting through thick clouds with such intense energy that it left an eerie hole in overcast skies, said some United Airlines employees who observed the phenomenon.
All the witnesses said the object was dark gray and well defined in the overcast skies. They said the craft, estimated by different accounts to be 6 feet to 24 feet in diameter, did not display any lights.
Though some people were upset the government was doing very little to investigate, a few people found it humorous.
“To fly 7 million light years to O’Hare and then have to turn around and go home because your gate was occupied is simply unacceptable,” said O’Hare controller and union official Craig Burzych.
Pretty interesting. I wish I’d been there to see it myself.
You can read about the details in the Chicago Tribune.
Would you want to continue flying after seeing something like this out of your airplane window?
If not, too bad – because the pilots decided to continue forward with the trans-pacific flight anyway!
From the Guardian:
Air traffic controllers monitoring a British Airways jumbo jet were stunned at the pilot’s decision to try to “get as far as we can” after an engine caught fire on takeoff, a transcript of discussions between the plane and the control tower revealed.
The controllers in Los Angeles expected the four-engine Boeing 747 to turn around but, after taking advice from BA’s operations base, the pilot carried on towards London. He told air traffic control: “We just decided we want to set off on our flight-plan route and get as far as we can.”
The picture doesn’t go with the news story but it gives you a visual as to what it might look like.
I have not tried this myself so try this at your own risk. I suggest testing it on someone who is much smaller than you.
Wired magazine explains how to capture the armrest on an airplane with 3 easy steps.
3 Steps to Armrest Checkmate:
- Midway through takeoff, recline your seat 2 inches.
- Slip your elbow into the gap between your neighbor’s seat back and your own.
- Slowly pivot your arm forward till it dominates the disputed territory.
If you need pictures, then visit the source.
Good luck!
Alright – the humor is somewhat unoriginal (think Airplane, the Movie), but what the hell.
Sometimes you just need to laugh.