Anyone else seen this whacky situation? At Rhode Island airport, a TSA officer examining a child’s carry-on bag found pieces of a handgun hidden inside a stuffed teddy bear, a stuffed rabbit, and a stuffed Mickey Mouse toy. The pieces included the frame of a .40-caliber firearm, a magazine with two .40-caliber rounds, a firing pin and a slide. These would form a complete gun when re-assembled. The child’s father said he was “unaware” that the pieces of the gun had been nestled snugly within the plush bodies of his child’s toys. The father also stated that the…
Monthly Archives
Monthly Archives for May 2012.
Travel Tips
I get a lot of requests for travel tips, especially Money saving ones. From next Monday, I am going to share a travel tip each week. Feel free to send questions and/or suggestions! Thank you!
This Week: 28 May
I have not been inside a plane for three weeks! Consider, I have flown 45 times so far in 2012- an average of 10 flights per month. In 2012, I have covered 134 334km – three and a third times around the earth! 14 airlines flown to 11 countries! One week of this year has been spent inside planes! In contrast, for the last 21 days, I have had no check ins, no lounges, no safety briefings and no plane food! This has been almost a shock! This will change with an…
Not Wanting the Cheapest Fare?!
As a Qantas Frequent Flyer, there are some categories of American Airlines Coach tickets that earn me points and status credits. These are: GLMNSV Discount Economy and BHKY economy. Other fare classes do not earn me any points or status credits eg OQ. I don’t overly care about the points but Status Credits are important to me as I want to keep my priority check in, higher luggage allowance and lounge access. Often the difference in price between a Q and a N fare is very, very slight but the outcome is,of course, very different. The obvious…
Qantas/Jetstar 787
The Boeing 787 “Dreamliner” made it to Australia this week on its world tour. Kate Schnider and Steve Creedy from The Australian newspaper have an excellent review and commentary of the plane. A photo gallery of the plane during its Sydney visit is here. I cannot wait to fly the 787!! Qantas, has ordered 50 of the dreamliners. The first 15 of them are to be delivered first to Qantas low cost airline subsidiary Jetstar in mid 2013, despite rumours the planes will go to Qantas International or Domestic operations. The Jetstar 787-8s will seat 313 passengers in a two class configuration.…
Kingfisher- still flies!
Can you believe India’s Kingfisher airlines is still flying. The group has now slipped from the largest to sixth airline in India in terms of passengers. Last week, the Indian government announced the carrier owes $US 49m (£31m) in taxes. In addition, the carrier owes money to airports, lenders and its own staff. The airline shut down most international short-haul operations in February and and all international services ceased on 10 April. In March, its mooted membership of One World never happened and IATA (the International Air Transport Association) suspended Kingfisher’s usage of the inter-airline funds transfer system. Cancellations, delays and disruptions have been…
Qatar Airways Competition Help
I have entered the Qatar Airways Reflections contest with five photos and need your vote to help me win. You will have to register with Qatar but you can do that using your Facebook id or an email address. I would really appreciate it. Thank you! Here are four of my five entries along with link to vote for that photo. 1. Mont Saint-Michel Rising out of the sea, one kilometre off the north-western coast of France, Saint-Michel has been a strategic point in Normandy and a monastery since the 8th century AD.The place has an almost magical feel heightened by the tidal movements which…
Sterling -Final demise
On the morning of Thursday May 3rd, 2012, Denmark’s regional airline Cimber Sterling filed for bankruptcy after its owners pulled financial support from the company. The carrier had 19 international and six domestic destinations. Four of its six domestic routes were monopoly routes. Sun-Air of Scandinavia, Danish Air Transport (DAT), Norwegian and Skyways have all taken over routes very quickly. I have never flown them but I was interested for two reasons. The first is how many airlines have gone this year. We are up to ten with some big names (Malev, Air Zimbabwe, and Spanair). Three went in January, four…
American’s Tricky Problem: Tickets for Life
So you want to raise cash as an airline? What do you do? Why not sell a First Class ticket that gives a passenger unlimited first class travel for life The Los Angeles Times reports that this is what American Airlines did in 1981. Aviation Gas was cheap and interest rates high. The airline wanted cash. So for $US250,000, 64 passengers bought a ticket which allowed them to travel as often as they wanted in first class. For an extra $150 000 you could take a companion. It was called the AAirpass program. The airline did not pass…
Some anomalies at Skytrax Best Airports
The World Airport award results came out last week. The top three are fairly predictable: Incheon International Airport– last year was third, Singapore Changi Airport -my favourite airport Hong Kong International Airport – last year was first Amsterdam Schiphol Airport comes in at fourth. Everyone raves about Schiphol but I am not a huge fan. Beijing’s vast Capital International Airport sits at fifth. The airport inclusions that I found odd are: 11 London Heathrow Airport. If I was to create hell on earth, it would be London Heathrow. The new terminals are nice but already too small and…
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