Tag: Airports

JetBlue’s New T5: A Nice Place to Live?

Photo by Rob Verger

JetBlue’s terminal at John F. Kennedy International Airport sparkles. At a cost of $743 million, the 635,000-square-foot terminal known as T5 opened in October 2008. I’ve passed through it twice and was impressed with how bright and scrubbed clean it felt. And it offers what every terminal needs: free Wi-Fi.

This last detail makes it perfect to work from—perhaps even, for a very short period of time, to live in.

So starting today, with the permission of the good folks at JetBlue, I’ll be living in T5 for 24 hours and blogging about it as I go. I’m not flying anywhere. I’m headed to the airport just for fun and will spend a full day and night writing about the pulse of the place and anything else that comes up.

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New Travel Book: ‘The Wall Street Journal Guide to Power Travel’

Most of us who fly are curious: we want to know how the system that is transporting us from our homes to a new destination works, and there may be no system more opaque than air travel. For those of us who want to not only understand the system, but also figure out how to get the best deals, I highly recommend Scott McCartney’s latest book, The Wall Street Journal Guide to Power Travel. (You can read my interview with McCartney, the Journal’s Middle Seat columnist, here.)

At first glance, a book advertising “power travel” may seem not to appeal to someone who, in the spirit of World Hum, is probably less interested in “powering” through a travel experience than trying to enjoy every moment of the journey. But we all have a desire to get through the air travel segment as efficiently and cheaply as possible, and I love the way this book explains the complicated world of air travel.

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Interview With Scott McCartney: Author of ‘The Wall Street Journal Guide to Power Travel’

Photo by Hodges Photographers

Scott McCartney, who writes the popular Middle Seat column for The Wall Street Journal, has a new book out with an enticing subtitle: The Wall Street Journal Guide to Power Travel: How to Arrive With Your Dignity, Sanity, and Wallet Intact.

The book, which provides a look inside almost all aspects of the airline industry, is full of great advice on how to navigate air travel today. I’ll have my review of the book in a forthcoming item here, but in the meantime, I caught up with McCartney, who is also a licensed private pilot, via email to ask him a few questions.

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Straight to Airport Security, Your Phone as Your Boarding Pass

Photo by KB35, via Flick (Creative Commons)

Have you ever checked in for a flight using your iPhone as your boarding pass?

Completely paperless check-in—by way of a boarding pass with an embedded barcode sent to your mobile phone, which you then present at security and the gate—may be becoming more widespread, NPR reports in All Tech Considered.

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A Flight From Kathmandu to Tumlingtar

Photo by Rob Verger

It’s been gray and drizzly for a few days now in New York City, and this dreary weather gives me a kind of itchy wanderlust. The airport beckons. It makes me nostalgic for what was perhaps the most adventurous flight and trip I’ve ever taken, now almost a decade ago.

I suspect that many travelers out there have such a trip in mind—the kind that, while it may have been grand and seminal for you at the time, might live on even larger in your mind in the years afterwards.

I was studying abroad in Nepal at the time, and we had reached the point in the semester when we all were required to pursue independent study projects. I had decided to venture out and try to collect legends about something called the Khembalung Beyul in northeastern Nepal, which is a Shangri-la-type “hidden valley” that exists more in story than in actuality.

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NPR Broadcasts From ‘The Troubled Skies’

Photo by Donald Verger

There are a few truisms about the airline industry today.

First: It’s no fun to be in the airline business at the moment.

Second: It’s more fun if you’re a passenger, because fares are cheap—although no one is sure how long they’ll stay that way.

For example, JetBlue advertised (via @JetBlue) some $29 one-way fares yesterday, although restrictions included the fact that the low fares were only good for travel on Tuesdays or Wednesdays. (As for the latest development in a la carte fees: Delta just announced it will start charging $50 for a second checked bag on international flights.)

Third: as demand slows and the national system becomes less stressed, things seem to be operating more smoothly.

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The Things They Carried—On Planes

Photo by visualdensity, via Flickr (Creative Commons)

We carry our things with us when we fly, and sometimes those things are weird. And even if they’re not weird, they might seem strange when juxtaposed with the airplane setting, an incongruity in such a modern environment.

Last week, four baby pythons evidently escaped their container in the cargo hold of a Qantas 737, slithered somewhere in the plane—and disappeared. The plane was later fumigated. I don’t know if the snakes belonged to a passenger or were just being shipped, but it does make me wonder: What weird things do people carry with them aboard?

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Interview With Jason Barger: Author of ‘Step Back From the Baggage Claim’

Photo by Joe Maiorana

I love the transitory airport realm sometimes described as Airworld, a place selected by World Hum as one of the Seven Wonders of the Shrinking Planet.

I like the buzz of people coming and going, I like buying the occasional New Yorker magazine from Hudson News to pass the time, and I even like the sharp whiffs of jet exhaust you get going down the gate ramp.

But what would it be like to spend seven consecutive days in Airworld, flying around the country with no destination but the next city, sleeping in airports and killing time until your next flight leaves?

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Still No Word on What Caused Scabies Outbreak Among Boston TSA Staff

Still No Word on What Caused Scabies Outbreak Among Boston TSA Staff Photo of Pohnpei's airport by Rob Verger
Photo of Pohnpei’s airport by Rob Verger

In late March, five TSA workers at Boston’s Logan Airport were infected with scabies, a nasty little bug that literally lives and breeds underneath the host’s skin.

The incident merited a posting on the TSA’s blog, reassuring passengers that there was basically no chance they could have contracted the bugs by going through security. (One of the many reasons why it would have been practically impossible for a passenger to become infected this way is that the TSA screeners wear gloves, and scabies is usually only spread through direct skin-to-skin contact.)

When I contacted the TSA this week to see if they had any leads in how the outbreak began, Ann Davis, the Public Affairs Officer for the TSA in Boston, said via email:

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Is Whole Body Imaging Coming to an Airport Near You?

Will full-body scanners eventually replace the traditional metal detector as a primary screening device at U.S. airports? It seems likely, reports Joe Sharkey for the New York Times. “Robin Kane, the agency’s acting chief technology officer, said that the initial results from pilot tests at some checkpoints at 19 airports in the United States had been so good that the idea of using the machines as the standard checkpoint detectors made sense,” Sharkey writes.

“Assuming tests continue to be positive,” Sharkey adds, “the machines will eventually be used at most domestic airports.”

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Further Thoughts on Continental Connect Flight 3407

It’s been nearly two months since Continental Connect Flight 3407 crashed in Clarence Center, New York, while on its approach to Buffalo-Niagara International Airport. Over at Ask the Pilot, Patrick Smith analyzes the most recent news, which he describes as “fascinating and disturbing.” While initially ice had been a prime suspect, Smith writes, “Investigators are focused instead on what appears to be an egregious case of pilot error.”

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Air Travel Now, in Numbers


Tangled Up In Blue

Photo by Rob Verger

Two weekends ago, when I flew from New York City to Portland, Maine, on JetBlue, my plane, interestingly, had a name: “Blue Complete Me.” On the return trip, the plane, an Embraer E190, was named “Luiz F. Kahl.”

All JetBlue aircraft have names, and all but two of them have the word “blue” in it (although sometimes “blue” is written in another language). Some of them are pretty funny. The plane with tail number N599JB is called, “If The Blue Fits,” number N542JB is “Deja Blue” and N612JB is “Blue Look Maahvelous.” There’s even a humorous thread on FlyerTalk.com in which people play the JetBlue “name game,” listing the names of the JetBlue planes they have flown. Weird, right? (Among U.S. airlines, Virgin America also names its planes. One is called, “My Other Ride’s a Spaceship.”)

It’s definitely all part of JetBlue’s quirky branding strategy, but still, I find these names amusing. Names like “Hasta bluego” and “Parlez-blue?” make me smile and roll my eyes.


In Europe, Straighter Flight Paths Could Cut Costs and CO2

In Europe, Straighter Flight Paths Could Cut Costs and CO2 Photo by moogs via Flickr (Creative Commons

About 3 percent of Europe’s CO2 output comes from airlines, which use up tons of fuel by zig-zagging between the national airspaces of the 27 member-states, Reuters reports. This week, EU lawmakers in Strasbourg agreed to the Single European Sky II plan that would save billions of euros in costs by modernizing air traffic management, straightening flight paths and streamlining the 27 airplaces to nine by June 2012.

The move could help the EU cut CO2 emissions to a fifth below 1990 levels by 2020. Could it also making flying the European skies faster and more pleasant?


A ‘Twitcom’ from Southwest Airlines

This is priceless. Southwest Airlines’ blog, Nuts About Southwest, has posted what they call a “twitcom.” Here’s what they did: They created four characters, imagined a situation for them, and then, during an hour-long time window, Twitter followers submitted the lines the characters would speak. The incentive to participate came from the fact that Southwest picked one Twitterer in a raffle afterwards, and will send that person to the Nashville Film Festival.

The result is a 6-minute skit, acted out by Southwest employees on the airline’s emerging media team. Video below. As it says in the posting, “Please don’t laugh at our acting skills.” But isn’t that all part of the fun?

 


For Sale: Three Airports in the U.K.

For Sale: Three Airports in the U.K. Photo by The Wolf, via Flickr (Creative Commons)
Photo by The Wolf, via Flickr (Creative Commons)

Want to buy a British airport?

Last week the United Kingdom’s Competition Commission ruled that BAA—the company that owns seven airports in the U.K.—is required to sell London’s Gatwick and Stansted airports and one of two airports in Scotland.

This, the Economist reports, could perhaps improve conditions at Heathrow, which sees 67 million people a year. Speaking of that congested airport, the Economist writes: “Ideally, an expanded Gatwick or, to a lesser extent, Stansted could relieve the pressure. But crowded Heathrow generates plenty of profit and Gatwick and Stansted are also owned by BAA, so reducing congestion is not the firm’s top priority. Splitting ownership of the airports should encourage competition between them.” (Read the Commission’s full report via their website.)

Meanwhile, in reaction to the news, the Times of London offers 10 ways to improve airports, and also has put together a video that shows unhappy conditions at different airports in the world, including a lonely bag left out in the rain in Madrid, nasty weather at Chicago O’Hare, and yes, the “Airport Auntie.”


Big Plane, Small Plane

Photo by MileageNYC, via Flickr (Creative Commons)

As of June 1, Emirates will cease using its A380s—the biggest commercial plane in the skies—between Dubai and New York City. The airline will be replacing it with Boeing 777s, citing the poor economy as the reason to use the comparatively smaller plane, which has fewer seats to fill.

At the other end of the size spectrum, a company in Massachusetts called Terrafugia has celebrated the first flight of a flying car they have engineered called the Transition. As the Middle Seat Terminal points out, “While most people would look at the gizmo and call it a flying car, Terrafugia—founded by five pilots, all MIT graduates—prefers to call the beast a ‘Roadable Aircraft.’” According to the company’s website, each plane is anticipated to cost $194,000.

How many of these tiny flying cars do you think would fit inside an A380?


Stranded in Sao Paulo

sao paolo REUTERS/Paulo Whitaker

During the chaos of a Sao Paulo airport workers' strike, Kevin Capp discovered an unlikely ally.

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Tough Times for Airlines: Good for Passengers?

Airlines are scaling back these days in an effort to stay lean. Among the airlines that have announced cutbacks lately are Delta, United, Southwest and American.

But tough times for airlines can mean there are bargains to be found. Recently, The New York Times, in a good review of TripAdvisor’s new consolidated flight fares and fees search engine (which has been getting other praise, too) put it this way: “Yes, air fares are at bargain levels on many routes, as passenger demand falls faster than the airlines’ frantic moves to reduce capacity.”

So, if you need to travel—better yet, if you want to travel—book now!

Other good news for passengers? Airports in the U.K. will soon be subject to oversight by a consumer watchdog group called Passenger Focus. I like the sound of that. Let’s keep the focus on the passenger.


What Not to do When Late for a Flight

The best thing not to do, when it’s clear you’ve missed your flight, is to pretend to be an air marshal.