The breathless, largely uncritical coverage of the new Airbus A380 superjumbo last week — both online and in the mainstream media — may be a symptom of a much bigger problem that has afflicted the travel press since Wilbur and Orville Wright took flight at Kitty Hawk.
From the monthly archives:
March 2007
ELLIOTT’S E-MAIL
Travel tips, news and information
March 29, 2007
Redesign, interrupted. This week’s theme: chaos. I took a week off from publishing Elliott’s E-Mail to spend time with my brother and to redesign my site and newsletter. The good news … the site’s almost done. The bad news? It’s almost done. You’ll find lots of uneven [...]
When Stacie Heflin checks in at a Hampton Inn in Mississippi, she finds that her room isn’t clean. Among the items Heflin discovers lying around: a hairpin, a rubber band, a clothespin and a pill. Afraid that her toddler will help himself to some of the items, she ends up cleaning the room herself. Is she entitled to her money back under the hotel’s money-back guarantee? She thinks so, but the hotel isn’t responding to her queries.
So you finally got a passport, eh? Might not be enough to get you into Canada — or other countries, for that matter. Our neighbors to the north have been cracking down on members of what they call an Inadmissible Class, which includes travelers convicted of shoplifting, theft, assault, dangerous driving or unauthorized possession of a firearm.
Business travel is a lot like space travel. I should know. I used to direct the fatigue countermeasures program at NASA, where we studied the effects of space travel on astronauts. And as an independent scientist, I am constantly traveling on business, so I see how frequent fliers handle exhaustion.
Were they re-enacting that scene from Titanic, where they stand at the bow of the ship and scream, ‘I’m the king of the world!’? We may never know. But what we do know is that an American couple fell off their balcony of the Grand Princess and into the Gulf of Mexico last weekend.
We shoulda seen this one coming. The State Department apparently has a significant backlog of passport applications, which could affect the vacations of tens of thousands of Americans this summer.
Jim Mesick and his wife make the flight to Montego Bay, but their luggage doesn’t. When they pay $133 for new clothes and toiletries, and ask their airline for a reimbursement, they’re turned down. The reason? They went shopping too soon. Or did they?
By now you’ve probably read accounts of last weekend’s weather-related airline delays, most of which affected US Airways. But what does the airline have to say about the incident? In an internal memo from US Airways’ CEO Doug Parker to employees, the carrier analyzes the event and draws a few interesting conclusions.
If I told you that I’m a shoe salesman who makes an occasional business trip, you would probably think, “Now there’s a safe job.”
When it comes to domestic travel, the question hasn’t ever really been whether to tip, but how much to tip while you’re on the road. Well, it turns out that’s the wrong question.
Another runway imprisonment incident in New York this weekend. Another good reason to pass a Passenger Bill of Rights, pronto.
ELLIOTT’S E-MAIL
Travel tips, news and information
March 14, 2007
Wow! The response to last week’s big move into online video was, in a word, overwhelming. I’d like to that everyone who wrote me with their opinions and feedback. And guess what? We’ve done it again this week — another three secrets videocast about the Astronaut Hall of [...]
Maggie O’Brien’s purse is stolen while she’s on vacation in South Carolina, and she loses the keys to her rental car. Her vehicle is towed back to the rental location in Charlotte, N.C. Now her car rental company, Budget, wants to charge her $3,551 for a four-week rental. Should she have to pay for a car she never used?
By now everyone — including the bad guys — know that being designated as a “selectee” for further screening is almost always a totally random thing. The airline draws your name from the passenger list and generates a boarding pass with “SSSS” written across it. It’s your lucky day!
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