News and notes from around the interweb:
- That JetBlue flight where a maskless man did lines of coke in the lavatory, groped and threatened a woman on board? He brandished a knife, claiming to be Genghis Khan.
- Holiday Inn Express owner sues IHG claiming their mandate to use specific vendors drives up costs reminiscent of the Marriott franchisee lawsuit over Avendra.
- FAA expected to downgrade the safety rating of Mexican air regulators meaning no new US routes for Mexican airlines and no new codeshares on Mexican carriers by US airlines. Existing service would be unaffected. (If this happened during the Trump administration it would have been seen as motivated by animus, since so many actions actually were.)
- Park Hyatt Vendome re-opened! I would have a hard time counting the number of times I’ve stayed there, always on points where it remains fantastic value (not to mention often with confirmed suite upgrade and complimentary room service breakfast for Globalists).
- Air Canada’s flight attendants’ union won a grievance allowing visible tattoos
- Delta Sky Club buffets are back, replacing pre-packaged food. Here’s a shot from a reader in Detroit with an employee preparing plates for passengers.
Tattoos = self harm. As a premium pax I don’t wish to see them thanks, so I’ll be skipping Air Canada.
Inconveniencing my own life to uselessly protest others’ autonomy over their bodies = self harm.
I will continue to travel AC if need be.
There are plenty of reasons for buffets to end but covid isn’t one of them; studies have shown repeatedly that covid is not transmitted by touch. There are some things in American society that needed to change because of covid. If Delta intends to fully keep spraying its aircraft interiors – some airlines have walked back from that – they have an advantage, but again, not because of covid but because there are many surface borne contaminants. Same thing w/ sanitizing hand lotion esp. on aircraft. Self-serve buffets are just too hard to keep free from contaminants.
Air Canada can continue bigotry. The arbitrator’s ruling allows AC to ban tattoos on the face.
This should be the least of Air Canada’s problems.
Actually the downgrade in FAA tier will have a major impact on codeshares, not just prohibiting new ones. Existing arrangements where the Mexican carrier is the marketing airline will have to be removed and the passenger rebooked onto the US operating carrier’s prime flight number. It will be very ugly for DL/AM and F9/Y4.
It’s not a real buffet//You point to the food item u want and they put it on a plate then take it to the end of the area for you to pick up!! Not quite the same as Pre-C in most lounges.. In atlanta they have everything separately wrapped so u can pick out your own food….
I just stayed at the JW Marriott in Panama City, Panama and they had a similar buffet set-up for breakfast. It worked fine. You told them what you wanted and they dished it up for you. Hopefully this won’t last forever, but for the time being it allows them to serve a really great breakfast while meeting Panama’s strict Covid guidelines.
@Tim Dunn — Right, Covid doesn’t spread from buffets. Indeed, you could argue making a server plate your food increases your risk from Covid because you have to linger longer on the buffet line this way. So this is Covid Theater. Aside from Covid, I don’t know whether buffets are good or bad. They certainly are more convenient than waiting for someone to serve you. That said, it you could ACTUALLY prove that a significant number of people get sick from buffets, I’d certainly support alternatives.