There’s an ongoing discussion amongst several blogs about whether contracting for private security forces is a good idea. Mark Kleiman argues that hiring people at higher contract prices to deliver skills developed at government expense is a bad idea, amounting to competing with ourselves. Eugene Volokh offers up commercial pilots as a counterexample. [M]any Air Force pilots get better-paying jobs with the airlines when they leave the service. They’re selling to private airlines skills that were acquired at public expense. Some of them might leave the service earlier because of these job opportunities. Should we be worried about that? Should we try to keep the airlines from hiring them away? I realize the situation isn’t completely analogous — the government generally doesn’t do much hiring of private airlines for military transport (though I vaguely recall…
About Gary Leff
Mileage Sweepstakes
Points.com is giving away a million American Airlines miles (10 prizes of 100,000 miles apiece).
Random and Unrelated Cool Stuff
Sprint will give you a free ear bud for your cell phone. If you sell things on eBay, you will want to check out BidBot which will analyze past eBay auctions and help you get the best price for your merchandise. Google has a new shopping tool called Froogle. If you think data protection is cool, you may want a free “Backup for the Future” t-shirt. Or maybe you’d like a free book, 151 TIPS FOR MATURE TRAVELERS.
Flowers Bonus Miles
Earn 20 United miles per dollar spent at FTD.com, and this time the offer isn’t even intended to be targeted at 1Ks.
Private Eyes, They’re Watching You
The Transporation Security Administration is examining the use of RFID-tagged airline boarding passes that could allow passenger tracking within airports. Katherine Albrecht wonders whether the TSA will time how long she spends in the ladies room.
Inside the Mind of a Hotel
This 2002 article tells Utell properties (e.g. ANA, Sofitel, Jurys) how they should set up their Priceline rates and how they should treat Priceline customers.(Hat tip to a post at BetterBidding.com.)
High Speed Internet on the Train
Amtrak is testing high speed wireless internet access aboard some trains in California, with plans to roll it out to the Boston-New York-Washington corridor.. (as with all things Amtrak) eventually.
Additional Slots Awarded for Reagan National
Washington, DC’s Ronald Reagan National Airport is currently limited both in the number of takeoffs and landings permitted (slot controlled) and in the distance that flights make travel to and from the airport (1250 miles). There are some exceptions to the 1250 mile ‘perimeter rule’ that have been carved out by Congress, for example Alaska Airlines currently flies one daily flight to Seattle and America West flies to Las Vegas. More flights are coming to National, including flights beyond the perimeter. The department awarded United Airlines with two daily flights to Denver; Frontier Airlines with four flights to Denver; Alaska Airlines with one daily flight to Seattle and one to Los Angeles; and America West Airlines with two flights to Phoenix. The Transportation Department awarded a number of short-haul slots, including two daily flights each…
The economics of frequent flyer awards, airline perspective
Gary Steiger of Free Frequent Flyer Miles passed along this article which details frequent flyer award useage (how many awards claimed, what percentage of travel that accounts for) at each carrier, drawn from their most recent 10-K filings. The April issue of Inside Flyer (subscription required) has more to say about these 10-Ks, outlining what they reveal about the economics of frequent flyer miles. In simple terms, American thus estimates that a domestic roundtrip will cost them about $12.90. This is in fairly stark contrast to Delta and Northwest, which estimate their costs at $16.01 and $16.57, respectively. On average, it seems the cost of your free ticket is about $14.74. That’s a three-dollar drop from 2002. To illustrate just how profitable a frequent flyer program can be, then, let’s play with that $14.74 figure.…
A weird, weird world
Just when I thought the world couldn’t get stranger than a man suing an airline for failing to warn him that drinking too much could be dangerous, come these stories: A 15 year old girl is charged with child pornography for sexually exploiting herself. A Virginia woman is charged with a felony for receiving oral sex. The judge in the case says that, the Supreme Court’s Lawrence v. Texas decision notwithstanding, a law’s constitutionality is the purview of the legislature and not the courts. The Georgia House of Representatives has passed a ban on women piercing their genitals.
