Just desserts

Kicking asshole off plane.

The taxman payeth.

Routers are everywhere.

China rates the US on human rights.

Versailles, creating the next war at the end of the first World War:

One is not enough?

Man caught at airport with 44 lizards in pants.

Reminds me of that ship and that iceberg....

What was the name?....

TORONTO - Air Canada's regional carrier Jazz is removing life vests from all its planes to save weight and fuel.

Jazz spokeswoman Manon Stuart said Thursday that government regulations set by Transport Canada allow airlines to use floatation devices instead of life vests provided the planes remain within 50 nautical miles of shore.

Safety cards in the seat pockets of Jazz aircraft now direct passengers to use the seat cushions as floatation devices.

"The nature of our operations doesn't require that we carry both," Stuart said.

Stuart said Jazz is a transcontinental carrier that doesn't fly over the ocean.

Ti .. um ...tan... As I remember, it sank.

Customer service during the Bush era

Is making you sit in someone else's pee during a flight:

An American Airlines passenger says they had to sit through an entire flight in a seat soaked with urine from a previous passenger, the Fort Wayne Observed blog reports. Here's an excerpt of the complaint letter they emailed the airline:

Upon boarding this flight, my [spouse] was assigned seat 24E. Upon reaching the seat, the gentleman in seat 24F indicated that seat 24E was soaked and that it smelled badly. That kept [my spouse] from immediately sitting in the seat. In fact, the seat was soaked with urine. The flight attendant's solution was to put a couple of blankets and a plastic bag on the seat. [Your passenger] literally sat in a urine soaked seat (the seat belt was soaked also) for the duration of this 2 hour flight! [There] was offered no compensation, no alternative seating, nothing.

Hmmm... the airlines haven't learned from these incidents? Screw the customers. It's all about the money, isn't it?

Cheaper is not always better, especially at 31,000 feet

...the FAA is reporting that the newest passenger planes are held together with "substandard" parts. The oversight at several supplier factories was so shoddy that workers were caught using rulers made of scotch-tape and paper.

The report cited four engine failures in 2003 -- three on the ground, one in flight -- that were traced to "unapproved design changes made by a . . . supplier" of speed sensors on engine fuel pumps. It did not cite any more recent incidents, nor did it specify the degree to which continuing problems with parts threaten to cause similar failures.

During a visit to one parts supplier, the inspector general's office observed an employee who "used a piece of paper, scotch-taped to the work surface, as a measuring device for a length of wire on an oil and fuel pressure transmitter."

So we will now have airplanes falling out the skies because the corporations want to make more money? What happened to safety first? The lives of ... you know... the customers and crew and the people on the ground? Will these crashes be blamed on terrorists when it is actually corporate greed that causes them?

The airlines wanted to refuse passengers access to a toilet

Apparently to them, the need to pee can be ignored.

All links are from the Consumerist:

Back in those lazy summer days of August, New York Governor Eliot Spitzer signed a "passenger bill of rights" into law—requiring airlines who keep passengers on a grounded airplane more than 3 hours to provide water, snacks, fresh air and a working toilet.

The airlines, horrified at the thought of being required to give people water and then provide a place where said water could be disposed of after it had served its intended purpose, tried to stop the law but lost when U.S. District Judge Lawrence E. Kahn ruled in favor of the bill of rights.

The law went into effect yesterday.

Lawsuit against American Airlines started by a woman who sat on a plane stuck on the tarmac for nine hours:

If we had an award for most pissed-off consumer ever, it might go to Kate Hanni. After being stranded on the tarmac by American Airlines in 2006, she started a group called "The Coalition For An Airline Passengers' Bill Of Rights," which, since we first reported on it, has grown from a blogspot blog to a full blown lobbying group that has a tipline and issues press releases.

Cathay Pacific threatens parents who used an airline approved child seat:

We were kicked off the 747-400 because they refused to allow a car seat on board and my two year old son was incapable of staying in his coffin-like seat. We were told we were a security threat, threatened to be left behind and accused of not following crew instructions. We were flying back from China on a vacation that was business related. I had my wife, Christine, our baby sitter Kathleen and our two boys, Max, age five (5) and Rex age two (2). We flew to China by Cathay Pacific. We took on our child's FAA approved car seat and with Rex strapped in he slept the entire way to Hong Kong. Such was not be the same on the way back.

And apparently United Airlines deals with all the problems by canceling flights:

Today United Airlines canceled almost 60 flights at airports around the country, bringing the airline's total cancellations since December 23rd over 1,100 flights—far more than any of its rivals. United's official excuse is weather, but according to the Reuters, pilots are saying United's decision to scale back staffing has lead to the scheduling disaster.

9/11 changed everything, especially courtesy and common sense. It also made the airlines forget customers remember when flying actually was fun and the passengers were treated like people rather than like cattle.

Revenge for those who fly

And are forced to listen to ads.... John Hargrave rises to the challenge:

US Airways management has to listen,
when you have their home number.

I'm on the plane, and they're trying to sell me an airline credit card.

This is a sign of desperation, an airline on its last legs: peddling us credit cards during the flight. It's not enough that they've taken our meals, our leg room, and our on-time departures. Now they take our dignity, by hitting us up for an airline credit card while we are held captive on their smelly planes.

Here's how US Airways does it: they turn one unlucky stewardess into a seat-to-seat saleswoman. She gives you the pitch, then she walks down the aisle with applications, while people try to avoid meeting her gaze. It is awkward.

[snip]

Since my previous attempts to change the US Airways policy had gotten me nowhere, I decided to call Christ at his home. At 5:30 a.m. [Click here to listen]

TRAVIS CHRIST: Hello?

JOHN HARGRAVE: Hello, may I speak with Mr. Travis Christ?

TC: Yeah, that's me.

JH: Oh, hello Mr. Christ. My name's John Hargrave, and I'm here to tell you about a fantastic new credit card offer...

TC: Do you know what time it is here?

JH: What time?

TC: Five in the morning.

JH: Oh.

TC: So take me off your list and don't call me again.

JH: See, that's funny. I was sleeping on the plane the other day, and you tried to sell me a credit card.

TC: [Hang up]

It continues. Hargrave shows wonderful persistence and illustrates the stupidity of forced credit card pitches to a captive audience with great humor.

Flying while high?

Um... shouldn't this on the to do list?

Toxic fumes on planes are poisoning pilots and rendering them unable to fly safely, say pilots, who are campaigning for "aerotoxic syndrome" to be recognised as a disease.

Two official investigations are being opened after concerns that highly toxic oil contaminants are leaking into cabin air supply on commercial airliners in flight. The UK government is to fit air-monitoring equipment on board aircraft amid increasing concerns that passengers, pilots and cabin crew are being exposed. And 1500 pilots will take part in the first major health study designed to establish the extent of the problem.

"We're basically the canaries – getting knocked down by the fumes first," says Susan Michaelis, a former pilot who believes she was poisoned by fumes from leaked engine oil while flying. She and other grounded pilots launched a campaign for the condition to be recognised, at a meeting at the UK's Houses of Parliament on 18 June.

Compressed air is routinely drawn off engines and supplied to aircraft cabins. If the seal inside the engine is not secure, engine oil can leak into the cabin and contaminating air with toxic tricresyl phosphate (TCP), says Michaelis.

Sippy cup terrorism

Give unlimited power to the Transportation Security Administration and you get ridiculous scenes like this:

Monica Emmerson was traveling with her 19 month old toddler when she was detained at Reagan International Airport and threatened with arrest because her toddler had a sippy cup with tap water in it.

I thought immediately that she was disobeying the liquid controls but...

TSA's rules allow passengers to take up to three ounces of liquid on board; they also allow parents to take milk or baby formula on board in larger quantities than that, if declared to TSA. But the question that she was asked by TSA --was this "nursery water" in the sippy cup?-- was an unanswerable one, since there's no such thing as nursery water in the TSA regulations, and it's not a generic term.

Monica Emmerson was detained for 45 minutes. She wasn't questioned about possible ties to terrorists. Her carry-on items weren't rigorously searched -- or even searched again. Neither the police nor TSA took any action that indicated that they throught she might be a security risk. She was just detained, harassed and threatened with arrest. All because of a sippy cup with water in it.

She missed her flight.

Update: An anonymous commenter as a TSA employee posted the rebuttal to this claim. Had a hard time seeing the second video but someone luckily youtubed it:



It really does look like she deliberately spills the water from the cup on the floor (1:03 in). The commenter also said she made her flight. If that is the case, I stand corrected and apologize to the TSA employees and turn my ire on to the mother who behaved more than badly.

The reason why these stories take off and become iconic is because so much of what has happened since 9/11 has been so badly done, mismanaged, politicized. We are no safer than we were before 9/11 due to the massive incompetence of the Bush administration. So many people have suffered with idiotic no-fly lists and officious behavior of employees of indifferent corporations that these stories carry weight and match our experiences on so many different levels.

This story may dissolve down to a tantrum of a misbehaved and frazzled mother, but there are many other tales of woe and irritation that are true that will fill in behind it.

And that's the real story.

Update 6/19: NTodd of Dohiyi Mir offers his experiences as a frequent flyer dealing with TSA employees.

Update: Join the Sippy Cup Protest noted by Mustang Bobby at Bark Bark Woof Woof.

Superman will be out of a job.

Via Tbogg:
"Sky Harbor International Airport here will test a new federal screening system that takes X-rays of passenger's bodies to detect concealed explosives and other weapons.

The technology, called backscatter, has been around for several years but has not been widely used in the U.S. as an anti-terrorism tool because of privacy concerns."

Update 12/4:
BlondeSense has more.