Monthly Archives for April 2023.
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
The Economist rounds up how bribes are solicited in Africa – worth knowing for any tourist who will visit there. 25% of Africans “who used public services or interacted with police” report having paid a bribe in the prior year.
Sunday’s United Airlines flight 90 from Newark to Tel Aviv returned to the U.S. several hours into the flight – making a nearly six hour flight to nowhere – after a passenger decided to sit in crew jump seats while waiting for the lavatory. A flight attendant wound up in an argument with the passenger, and things escalated.
A passenger on board American Airlines flight 292, which departed Saturday evening from New York JFK enroute for Delhi, was arrested on arrival in India Sunday night after getting into an argument with another passenger – and urinating on them.
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
Video has been seen on twitter over a million times of women on board a TUI flight blasting music, dancing in their seats and tossing back a beverage – while a passenger across the aisle has her head planted firmly in her tray table with hands over her ears trying to escape the madness.
If you wanted to open a business like a restaurant in the Atlanta airport you needed to pay the ex-Mayor’s daughter first. The airport’s former manager was fired for being insufficiently corrupt, and then the city council buried the payments that bought his silence.
Getting kickbacks from vendors avoids problems with violating FAA rules on use of funds, but does sometimes attract attention of the FBI. Some employees just commit expense fraud.
On April 5, two elderly passengers were removed from an American Airlines flight because the gate agent wouldn’t let them fly with their cello – even though they’d purchased a seat for the cello from the airline and flown with it on the first segment of their trip.
The passengers had flown from Palm Springs to Dallas – Fort Worth. They boarded their second flight. And a gate agent came on board and declared that they’d be unable to fly with a cello.
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
One of the more controversial aspects of flying is whether coach passengers should use the first class lavatory. American Airlines doesn’t have any rule against it on first class flights, but a woman of Middle Eastern and Latin descent Yazz Giraldo brought her three year old up from the bulkhead row of coach when he desperately had to go – and a flight attendant locked them into the lavatory. When she finally let them out she informed them they were responsible for a ‘terrorist incident’ and law enforcement met the plane.
This was all unfolding unbeknownst to the woman’s husband, also on the plane, a former FBI agent member of the Joint Terrorism Task Force.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
