News and notes from around the interweb:
- Good primer on the value of Best Western’s 50% off redemption promo
- American Airlines has stopped handing out sanitizer wipes on board. After all, they’re paying incentives to employees who don’t get vaccinated. It was a complicated process to get permission to have sanitizer on the plane in the first place. In contrast Delta actually installed sanitizer stations on planes.
- 2000 Delta miles for your first Turo rental, then 500 miles on subsequent rentals
- The UK will no longer require masks on planes but British Airways and Virgin Atlantic will require them anyway. Remember that US airlines required masks before there was a federal mandate, and the requirements at Southwest, American and United were more restrictive than what the feds require.
- An argument that the Airbus A380 made sense for state capacity-building, and drove sales of other Airbus aircraft so wasn’t as big an across-the-board failure as the project otherwise looks. But it was still a failure, even if the aircraft was great for passenger experience.
- United Airlines passenger blames turbulence for unwanted sexual touching of the passenger sitting next to them.
- Police officer helps family get to Nashville airport on time after tire goes flat
Doing whatever we can to help our community members, Ofc. Angle did not hesitate this morning to change a family’s flat tire. They were on their way to @Fly_Nashville to catch a flight when they struck a pothole on I-40, rupturing the tire. Angle got them back on their way! pic.twitter.com/7m5wsP338m
— Mt. Juliet Police (@MtJulietPolice) January 19, 2022
“American Airlines has stopped handing out hand sanitizer” – Good, the hand sanitizer fetish was one of the more bizarre outcomes of the pandemic. Airborne virus, people.
Bob, you’re partially right. People touch their nose frequently — hence the recommended frequent hand washing. The challenge with the hand sanitizer is that one would need to wipe one’s hands after each nose-touching. But, then, half of all people don’t wash their hands after using the toilet. So, yeah, you’re 100 percent right.
Gary, you and the referenced article make a good point about the A380. As a stand-alone program, over the program’s life cycle, its cumulative loss was around $20 to 25 billion. But, the collateral benefits must be acknowledged. Another collateral benefit was lessons learned in program management. The A380 team made three strategic errors that doomed it to losing status before its first flight . . . and they knew it. Choice of engines. Undercarriage design. Denying the expansion of point-to-point.
Turbulence. Uh huh…..
First-class passengers asked a flight attendant, “will we get a pre-departure beverage?”
Instead of a beverage, the flight attendant handed passengers a hand sanitizer and said, “suck on this.”
After that incident, American Airlines stopped handing out hand sanitizer.
American stopped back in December, the same as United. I was doing my 50 State Challenge in the last months of 2021 and most flights did not give you sanitizers when you boarded.
Given that the primary mode of infection is airborne the sanitizer towels were more for show. On recent fights most pax seemed to use to wipe tray tables and seats which should have already been properly santized. So scrapping the towels and the litter they cause is a smart move.
Hand sanitizer is a fetish that I’m glad to see go. Was glad to see absurd hospital masks go (though I think EK and/or EH might still be using them), and hoping to say an unfond farewell to masks next.
@JohnC – it’s been hit-or-miss for a year but officially stopping is new