News and notes from around the interweb:
- Mark your calendar for the DC frequent traveler meetup on December 12. It’s free and there are prizes.
- American has finished repainting the legacy US Airways mainline fleet. Main Cabin Extra seats and inflight power, of course, not so much.
Credit: American Airlines - Qatar Airways is offering paid premium cabin passengers Bentley transfers in Sydney. Earlier this year I splurged on a Bentley airport transfer from the W Doha for about $65, since I had never been in a Bentley. I wasn’t super-impressed.
- Airbnb and Homeaway are hitting back against fines in Barcelona
- Allocating Airport Slots – The History of Early Applied Experimental Research a little light weekend reading as it were.
- The long-delayed Park Hyatt Bangkok is said to be opening in March. However they aren’t yet taking reservations, so I’d still put the property in the category of coming ‘soon’. I wouldn’t be surprised to see rates here of THB10,000++. But you’re darned right I’m excited to see what they’ve done.
- Massachusetts Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, along with two House members, sent a letter to JetBlue asking them to install vortex generators on the Airbus A320s flying into Boston in order to reduce noise. (HT: @MattSoleyn) We know that only a small number of people actually complaint about aircraft noise and that vortex generators can reduce noise by 2 decibels. A whisper is 15 decibels.
You really believe the PH BKK can break THB 10k per night? In the past, St Regis tried, but failed. There are only two major chain hotels that can charge 10k per night and that’s The Peninsula and Mandarin Oriental.
“vortex generators can reduce noise by 2 decibels. A whisper is 15 decibels.”
This is a fundamental misunderstanding of decibels as a measurement (which is logarithmic). You can’t make such a comparison. A better response would’ve been that 3dB difference is generally accepted as the discernible threshold. In other words, one could measure – with a meter – the difference between 60 and 62 decibels, but most people can’t actually hear a difference. 60 to 63 is where most people would start to notice.