Flight to India : Flight news and information

It seems that these days they will make a musical and/or dance show about anything.  This is also the case at San Diego International Airport, where Jean Isaacs’ San Diego Dance Theater put on a performance today.  The show was appropriately called Rolling Luggage and depicted dance moves skillfully choreographed with pieces of luggage.  The performance was free to both visitors and travelers passing through San Diego Airport’s Terminal 2 Baggage Claim area.  I wonder if part of the dance was somehow dedicated to travelers arguing and complaining about overweight luggage fees?

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Rolling Luggage the Dance Show?

I arrived at the airport this morning to check in for my flight after a crazy drive to the airport with Laura, our last adventure as housemates (every drive we take together is crazy, it’s part of the Laura + Emily package.)  The last song that I hear as I leave the car is Your Blood Speaks by Nina Landis if that tells you anything about our drive for those of you that are familiar with that song.  I did the normal waiting in line, checking my bag…security…waiting…people watching… People Watching Just as a side note, I LOVE people watching!  Perhaps it’s the photographer in me, but I love seeing all the different types of people that are making their way through the airport in this grand mode we call traveling.  I sit and imagine who they are and what they do, where they’re from and where they’re going.  And I wonder, what do they think of me?  When someone sees me sitting here in my faded jeans, tennis shoes, black tee shirt with wild gray OneThing designs all over it, my black and red glasses, and crazy curly hair, what story do I tell?  My promise for the day was Matthew 5:14-16 (NKJV) “You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden.

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Adventure at the Airport

I am reading an interesting new book by a fellow named Richard Haass called War of Necessity, War of Choice .  As you might guess it is about the two wars we have fought with and in Iraq.  Haass is one of the nation’s top foreign policy thinkers and was a key part of both Bush administrations and of both decisions to go to war. I just started the book and am still in the section that deals with Desert Shield/Desert Storm in 1990/1991.  The scene is early August, 1990; right after Saddam Hussein’s Iraq invades Kuwait.  The United States has decided that the invasion cannot stand and has gone to the United Nations for backing.  A group of policy makers is meeting to plan for the various Sunday morning news shows that will be interviewing administration officials.  They are game planning for the questions they will get and going over suggested answers.  Haass throws this one on the table:  A primary policy goal of the United States is continued access to Persian Gulf oil.  Why does the United States still have no energy policy?  Haass reports a moment or two of silence, then nervous laughter.  “Good question!” says one participant.  Of course, that scene can be replicated today, or any of the thousands of days since 1990.  I wrote about this topic a lot last summer when gas was over $4 a gallon.  When I drove across seven states the other day in a truck I saw prices between $2.25 and $2.50.  There is simply no clamor for any action on energy now, and with health care taking up all the oxygen in Washington (with climate change to follow) we will not see any action on energy for a long time to come.  A year ago when the price was starting to come down, an oil analyst Peter Beutel was on the radio saying that he thought the price would go to $37 (he nailed it), that people would lose interest (he nailed it), but it would start to go back up (he nailed it) and would eventually go to $300 or so a barrel (ohhhhh noooooo).  And, then we’d really be in the soup.  High and unstable energy prices hurt airlines and airports alike, and were the leading edge of the economic problems that have reduced air service to so many communities these past several months.  A year ago I wrote about being in the Gerald Ford museum in Grand Rapids and seeing an exhibit on this issue and listening to a Ford speech on energy.  It is really hard to believe we’ve done so little since that time.  But it is easy to believe we will do nothing any time soon.  Unfortunately

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Energy . . . Still . . .

The ACI-NA Small Airports conference wrapped up in St. Louis last Friday.  As I wrote last week, those men and women who run our smaller airports are knee-deep in every issue.  They also keenly feel the impacts of economic changes, as well as the increased costs of regulatory mandates; since airlines are increasingly conscious of costs and anything that adds costs for airports or airlines puts their air service in peril.  We are in a tough time.  Government can do a few things.  Congress can pass a multi-year FAA reauthorization bill so we can avoid having any more short term extensions.  When the authorization is extended on a short term basis, the FAA can only make infrastructure grants on a piecemeal basis.  This makes planning impossible, especially for smaller airports that depend heavily on federal grants for their capital budgets.  The government can also pay closer attention to the cumulative costs of the regulations they issue.  Each regulation, on its own, carries a cost that can be borne, but on a cumulative basis it is much tougher, especially for smaller airports.  When I was in state government, our governor and legislature raised revenue to invest in transportation infrastructure, including airports.  A fair amount of that money went to airports in smaller communities.  Whenever the governor would talk to a company about investing in our state they always had two questions:  how is the education system and what kind of transportation links do you have.  Judging by the success we had, it seems like those are the real keys to economic development.  A couple of random points:  went to a game in the new Busch Stadium , my first time there.  What a great stadium.  Lots of food choices.  Two home runs by Albert Pujols , the best player in baseball today.  And they make great use of the arch, the old capitol and the rest of downtown St. Louis to give you a real feel for where you are at the ballpark.  After attending a family wedding and visiting some family in Champaign, Ill ., we drove a truck filled with family heirlooms back 14 hours through 7 states.  Saw lots of road work being done, some with stimulus money (according to the signs).

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St. Louis . . . and Beyond

I recently stumbled on a funny video on YouTube.  A musician, Dave Carroll,  had created a music video for his song “United Breaks Guitars” – the title is pretty self explanatory.  He had been Passing through Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport where United Airlines baggage handlers were seen carelessly tossing baggage, including Dave Carroll’s Taylor guitar.  Upon receiving the guitar at his destination, Dave had to spend over $1200 repairing it.

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Viral Protest of Baggage Handlers Breaking Guitars

Chrysler has named two former airline chiefs to its nine-member board, according to Bloomberg News. With the appointment of former Northwest CEO Doug Steenland and former United and US Airways CEO Stephen Wolf, the Fiat-run U.S. automaker has picked two…

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Two unpopular former airline execs resurface on Chrysler board (U…

For thousands of years man has been captivated by space.  In the past hundred years there have been a select few people who have been able to experience the large expanse of space.  99.99% of the population knows that the closest the will get to space are sci-fi movies and telescope and satellite photographs.  Soon however, as early as 2010, regular people will be able to travel into space.  The state of New Mexico has begun the construction of the $200 million Spaceport America, which will be home to Billionair Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic . Virgin Galactic has started taking advance bookings, at $200,000 per flight, in 2005, and over 45,000 people have already signed up.  Yes, the majority of the world’s population will still not be able to personally witness space, at least not at the $200,000 price tag, but one has to be interested and excited about the prospect of the beginning of space travel.

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An Out of This World Travel Experience

In case you didn’t know, most of our national airports are owned by the government, and most of the employees there work either for the government or for the airlines.  This practice of staffing the counters and gates at hundreds or airports costs the airlines a lot of money.  A new airport, recently opened in Branson Missouri, is looking to change all that.  Branson Airport, which is what it is currently unofficially referred to as (unofficially because an official name has not yet been chosen), is a privately owned and financed airport.  This airport will employ all persons working there, which means that the airlines (currently only AirTran and Sun Country) will not have to staff their ticket counters and gates there. How will this airport support the hundreds  of employees it will need to keep on staff?  Reportedly they have struck an agreement with the airlines that they will pay a certain fee per passenger that comes through that airport.  Either way, this represents a huge savings for the airlines because they will save on salaries, pensions, insurance, etc.  If the privately owned airport experiment works, we might see a restructuring of the national airport system, and if that happens, we will hopefully see a decrease in ticket prices.  Though that’s probably very wishful thinking.  My questions is how this will affect service, safety, and performance?

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A New Kind of Airport

US Airways from NY to Charlotte NC emergency landed in the Hudson River today shortly after takeoff, with the pilot appearing to carry off a picture perfect emergency landing in the Hudson River where river vessels quickly arrived to help evacuate passengers. As of 5:45pm EST no fatalities are reported and it appears also no serious injuries to the passengers.

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All Passengers Appear Safe on US Airways 1549 after emergency landing in Hudson River, New York.

Several Airports have begun special family lines – presumably to isolate some potential slowdowns to the check in process as families often have special needs and sometimes unruly or reluctant children. Here is the story However if your children are familiar with flying and know the routine, you may choose to use the regular methods and avoid the delays that may come from special family lines which will be harder to gauge in terms of the time taken to get bags, kids, and yourself processed

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Airport Family Lines – do they work?

Long term Airline Icelandair is promoting their flights in a new campaign. The Icelandair official Website is here and they serve these airports (links are to Icelandair’s info about those locations): Airport name: Amsterdam – Schiphol Airport Barcelona International Airport Bergen Airport Berlin Airport Boston Logan Airport Copenhagen Airport Frankfurt Airport Glasgow Airport Gothenburg Airport Halifax Airport Helsinki Airport Keflavík Airport London Heathrow Airport Madrid Airport Manchester airport Milan – Malpensa Airport Minneapolis/St

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Icelandair Revival