Dude, Where’s Our Jet? October 27, 2009
Posted by Joey in Airlines, Oops!.Tags: NWA 188
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It seems the pilots of NWA 188 were messing around with their laptops instead of flying the friendly skies and overshot their destination by a 100 miles.
In its continuing investigation of an Airbus A320 that overflew the Minneapolis-St Paul International/Wold-Chamberlain Airport (MSP), the National Transportation Safety Board has developed the following factual information: On Wednesday, October 21, 2009, at 5:56 pm mountain daylight time, an Airbus A320, operating as Northwest Airlines (NWA) flight 188, became a NORDO (no radio communications) flight at 37,000 feet. The flight was operating as a Part 121 flight from San Diego International Airport, San Diego, California (SAN) to MSP with 144 passengers, 2 pilots and 3 flight attendants.
United Breaks Guitars July 9, 2009
Posted by Joey in Airlines.Tags: Dave Carroll, Sons of Maxwell, United Airlines
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Via a tweet from William Gibson, ‘United Breaks Guitars’: Passenger’s revenge video becomes a viral hit.
Canadian musician Dave Carroll could have sung the blues after United Airlines workers at O’Hare International Airport smashed his guitar and the carrier refused to pick up the $1,200 cost to repair it.
Instead, he turned the experience into a witty ditty, “United Breaks Guitars,” and scored an instant hit on YouTube, his first in a 16-year career. Posted on Monday, the video had been viewed nearly 150,000 times by Wednesday. You can see the video at chicagotribune.com/guitars.
Revenge, it appears, was best served with a smile and a country twang.
“This struck a chord with us,” said Robin Urbanski, spokeswoman for Chicago-based United. “We are in conversation with one another to make what happened right.”
Bird Strike Data To Be Published April 22, 2009
Posted by Joey in Airlines, Regulations.Tags: Bird Strikes, Department of Transportation, FAA
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To follow up on the story You Can’t Handle The Truth (About Bird Strikes), the Dept. of Transportation reversed the FAA on publishing bird strike data.
Transportation Dept. Reverses FAA on Bird Strike Data.
The Department of Transportation is preparing to reject a proposal by the Federal Aviation Administration that would keep secret data about where and when birds strike airplanes.
The FAA last month quietly posted a proposal in the federal register, requesting public comment, that would bar the release of its records on bird collisions. The proposal followed a prominent incident in January when a flock of geese brought down a commercial flight, forcing the pilot to make an emergency landing on the Hudson River. The agency immediately came under fire because the recommendation runs counter President’s Obama vows of government transparency.
Obama Ends Armed Pilots Program March 17, 2009
Posted by Joey in Airlines, Politics.Tags: Armed Pilots, Federal Flight Deck Officers
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The Obama administration shows its anti-gun bias by ending the very successful program that allowed commercial airline pilots to carry handguns onto their flights. This program was one of the few bright spots in security after the 9/11 attacks.
Congrats, Barack, on making America less safe.
After the September 11 attacks, commercial airline pilots were allowed to carry guns if they completed a federal-safety program. No longer would unarmed pilots be defenseless as remorseless hijackers seized control of aircraft and rammed them into buildings.
Now President Obama is quietly ending the federal firearms program, risking public safety on airlines in the name of an anti-gun ideology.
The Obama administration this past week diverted some $2 million from the pilot training program to hire more supervisory staff, who will engage in field inspections of pilots.
This looks like completely unnecessary harassment of the pilots. The 12,000 Federal Flight Deck Officers, the pilots who have been approved to carry guns, are reported to have the best behavior of any federal law enforcement agency. There are no cases where any of them has improperly brandished or used a gun. There are just a few cases where officers have improperly used their IDs.
Ryanair: Want To Pee, Pay A Fee February 27, 2009
Posted by Joey in Airlines.Tags: Pay to Pee, Ryanair
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I don’t think the stewardesses flight attendants are going to appreciate collecting all the water bottles filled with yellow fluids.
I’m just saying…
Ryanair Pay-to-Pee Proposal Pisses Off Customers.
Ryanair, the Irish airline that has elevated nickeling and diming passengers to an art form, has found another way to suck money out of people’s pockets — installing pay toilets on airplanes.
The CEO of the famously cheap company announced, with a straight face, that he’s toying with the idea of putting pay toilets in every one of the airline’s 168 Boeing 737s. The idea has pilots and passengers freaking out, the airline’s flacks scrambling to contain the damage and us wondering what happens to the poor schmuck who can’t break a tenner.
“One thing we have looked at in the past and are looking at again is the possibility of maybe putting a coin slot on the toilet door so that people might actually have to spend a pound ($1.43) to spend a penny in future,” the windbag O’Leary said today during an appearance on the popular morning talkfest BBC Breakfast. He seemed genuinely perplexed to hear some passengers fly without cash. “I don’t think there is anybody in history that has got on board a Ryanair aircraft with less than a pound,” he said.
Flying the Unfriendly Skies September 14, 2008
Posted by Joey in Airlines.Tags: American Airlines
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The NY Times writes about how flying has been transformed into something worse than riding a Greyhound bus in Flying the Unfriendly Skies.
WHAT’S it like to be a flight attendant these days? That’s what I’ve often found myself wondering as I sit in my seat, waiting impatiently as yet another flight is delayed and my connection threatened, while around me are passengers fighting with each other over the lack of space in the shared bin, or complaining about having been bumped from an earlier flight, or swearing “never again” to fly this specific airline because they have been stuck in a middle seat even though they booked their ticket six months ago.
Is there a less-enviable, more-stressful occupation these days than that of a flight attendant? Just the look on their faces as they walk down the aisle — telling passengers that no matter how many times they try to squeeze them in, their suitcases are not going to fit into the overhead bin, or explaining yet again that they will not get a single morsel of decent food on this three-hour flight — tells you all you need to know of their misery.
It was a feeling that was reinforced when I glanced at an Internet chat board for flight attendants, airlinecrew.net, and came across postings like this: “I’ve been a flight attendant for 6yrs now, and I can tell you this much – if I’m still a flight attendant in 20yrs, I’ll be a raging b*tch!”
It wasn’t always this way, of course. Back in 1967, the best-selling book “Coffee, Tea or Me?” (subtitled “The Uninhibited Memoirs of Two Airline Stewardesses”) portrayed life in the air as a nonstop party, one to which the authors felt privileged to be invited. Another 60s artifact, the play “Boeing, Boeing,” recently revived on Broadway in a Tony Award-winning production, also pictured the life of stewardesses (as they were called then) as a glamorous romp, with suitors in every port. Most recently, the fictional ad executives on “Mad Men” were thrilled when they were asked to compete for an airline account, not only because of the business it would bring in but also because they would be in on the casting sessions for the stewardesses and would get to fly free. Oh, such fun!
It’s a fair bet that nothing about air travel today would inspire such rapture.
And the NY Times barely mentioned undressing for the TSA.
