News and notes from around the interweb:

• Do planes really need life vests? Apparently only 4 people from US Airways ‘Miracle on the Hudson’ flight 1549 “managed to properly don their life vest, securing the waist strap so it wouldn’t pop off.”

• Tahsir is the blogger with a business renting out cars on Turo (née Relay Rides). Here’s the story of how one of his cars was stolen (and recovered).

• India’s SpiceJet back from the brink

• New app lets you book unused hotel conference rooms. Uber is about utilizing excess capacity of your car (and time). Airbnb uses excess capacity of your home. Relay Rides does this with your car. Priceline and HotelTonight are different approaches on unused guest room capacity. But what about hotel meeting space? So far this is only available in New York.

• United pilots vote overwhelmingly to ratify 2 year contract extension. This will cost United some coin, but puts off potential passenger pain quite awhile.

• Delta Air Lines’ our-way-or-no-way attitude risks subverting US & Japan interests on Haneda flights. Delta likes free markets when it benefits them, otherwise they want government protectionism. The piece has more on Delta’s heavy handed tactics with Korean Air:

  Korean Air was unconvinced of the strategic benefits to itself. Delta’s response with heavy-handed tactics (cutting codeshares, frequent flyer earning rates) was meant to force Korean Air into a partnership, but it only served to alienate Delta from Korean, in a part of the world where relationships are critical; neither easily established, nor easily mended. Whether with the Japanese government or Korean Air, Delta is not making friends. Delta’s attempt to woo Skymark shaded its intentions with Korean Air, while Delta’s China Eastern stake has some contradictions with a Korean Air partnership.

  Delta is threatening that unless the Minnesota Congressional delegation backs their protectionism, they’ll cancel Minneapolis – Tokyo flying. Not the first time that Delta has threatened politicians with cancelled flights as a tactic to extract government favors.

• I tweeted,

  

  Conventional wisdom is often wrong, especially in the airline industry which operates on a herd mentality and fear of job loss for sticking one’s neck out.