Subscribe to RSS
Subscribe by Email
Like most people who have accumulated a pile of frequent flier miles, I am wary of the proposed merger of American Airlines and US Airways. The only reassuring thing is my knowledge that skilled, responsible corporate managers will be handling the details.
Archive for the ‘Airline Industry and Travel’ Category
September 18th, 2012
Category: Airline Industry and Travel
I am in the midst of a 12,000 mile airplane journey. As ever, I am impressed by the arid conditions aloft. Most passengers can suck down a liter of water on a cross-country flight without needing to micturate. After a journey like this, I myself end up with sandpaper skin, hangover eyes, and a blood-spewing [...]
February 7th, 2012
Category: Airline Industry and Travel
Last year I wrote about discovering that American Airlines had a better club hidden inside the airport club which I had previously thought was the only club there was. My excitement at entry to “the next level” faded when I began to wonder “Is there a better club inside the club that is inside the [...]
December 26th, 2011
Category: Airline Industry and Travel, Religion and Politics
An out of control passenger, foaming at the mouth, tried to open the exit door of an airplane at 30,000 feet. This could have been a disaster, but fortunately, there was a hero on board. Give it up for practicing Muslim Jabir Hazziez Jr. (h/t Steve Benen)
December 5th, 2011
Hotels are willing to pay me if I accept less frequent maid service. I approve.
December 1st, 2011
Category: Airline Industry and Travel, Economics
A NYT Times letter writer is upset that business and first class airplane tickets can be claimed as a business expense, meaning that all the people trapped in coach are subsidizing the fats cats sipping champagne in the front of the plane. I fly over 100,000 miles a year every year, only buy coach tickets [...]
October 24th, 2011
Take it from someone on a plane: guns in *checked* baggage are not a security threat. The mental metonymy that makes them seem so is a liberty threat, and one that I hope our institutions will forestall.
September 30th, 2011
Category: Airline Industry and Travel, Health and Medicine
I am not part of the cult of randomized clinical trials: For many questions they are often inappropriate, poorly designed or both. But when the clinical trial method is skilfully applied to the right question, the results should be taken seriously. As I describe on Stanford’s SCOPE blog, that’s why I have started wearing compression [...]
September 10th, 2011
I fly twice today on the dreaded date (It’s already 9/11 in England, despite what the post time says above), from London to Chicago and then on to San Francisco. I’ve had this routing and schedule before and was sad to see that there are more unsold seats today than usual. I didn’t book on [...]
June 27th, 2011
Category: Airline Industry and Travel
Every person has a secret vice. Some people emit global-send tweets of racy pictures they intended to reach merely one inappropriate recipient. Others have drug or gambling issues. My vice is less extreme, but sometimes more annoying. Through an ineffectual combination of parsimony and disorganization, I make cockamamie travel plans vulnerable to implosion.