Commentary

Category Archives for Commentary.

Diners Club: on the Comeback Trail?

by Gary Leff on April 9, 2005

Apr 09 2005

Colloquy says that the comeback of Diners Club continues, noting that US Diners Club cards will benefit from the global acceptance of Mastercard. They do note the devaluation of Diners Club Club Rewards points vis a vis Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards tickets: Diners Club’s effort to make the card easier to use puts it squarely in the sights of competing card issuers and their airline partners. Southwest Airlines has already raised the number of Diners Club points required for a free ticket: Previously, Diners Club customers had to spend just $16,000 to earn a free Southwest ticket; now they will have to spend $24,000. By contrast, it takes $19,200 in spending on Southwest’s own Bank One credit card to earn a free ticket on the airline. The piece doesn’t mention the devaluation for Priority Club…

Overflowing Toilets Require Colonoscopy?

by Gary Leff on April 4, 2005

Apr 04 2005

Via Tripso Daily, passengers are suing the Holland America cruise line because toilets overflowed during their trip and they saw crew members with prostitutes while in Ecuador. The complaint says that it took several hours to clean up the mess from the toilets, and that there was a stench. If accurate, some sort of shipboard credit should have been offered. Still, the compensated demanded seems a little much: The Oltmans said they expected to be compensated by Holland America for pain and suffering, emotional distress, loss of earnings, legal fees and medical expenses, including a colonoscopy and hemorrhoid surgery, the lawsuit said. (Emphasis mine.)

Change to Mailing List Version of View from the Wing

by Gary Leff on April 2, 2005

Apr 02 2005

Well over a thousand people currently receive each day’s postings by email. I can’t tell you how great it makes me feel that so many folks opted for that. This site is a labor of love and I really appreciate all the great feedback that I get. I hope that you like the new format of the website. I really do, and appreciate the work that the tech folks put into it. I find it much more readable, and also easier to work with. One consequence, though, of moving from a home grown system to Movable Type is that I no longer have the ability to send out each day’s content by email. Everyone has still been getting the content because I’ve manually been double-adding the entries into the old system in addition to the…

IRS To Tax Foreign Pilot and Flight Attendant Wages

by Gary Leff on March 27, 2005

Mar 27 2005

The IRS is apparently seeking to tax Latin American airlines for wages paid to flight attendants and pilots during the time they spend working over US airspace. (Link via Today in the Sky.) Critics of the move point out that other countries might respond by doing the same to U.S. airlines. Anyone with thoughts on why the IRS is focused on Latin American carriers — and not European or Asian carriers — feel free to offer them in them in the comments.

Completely off-topic: committing a crime with impunity in a small part of Idaho

by Gary Leff on March 27, 2005

Mar 27 2005

I just an an really interesting piece to be published in the Georgetown Law Journal (shocking itself, it’s also a good read) that argues there’s a 50 square mile area in the U.S. where felonies can’t be prosecuted: the portion of Yellowstone National Park which is in the state of Idaho. The Constitution’s 6th Amendment requires that juries be picked from the same district and state in which a crime is committed. Federal law sets the district governing all of Yellowstone as Wyoming — logical, as the park is 91% in the state of Wyoming. The districts of Montana and Idaho exclude the park.So juries must be chosen from the District of Wyoming to prosecute crimes committed in the park. However, if the crime is committed in that part of the park that is in…

This strikes me as bad. Very, very bad.

by Gary Leff on March 19, 2005

Mar 19 2005

A state representative in Texas wants to ban sexy cheerleading. Legislation filed by Rep. Al Edwards would put an end to “sexually suggestive” performances at athletic events and other extracurricular competitions. “It’s just too sexually oriented, you know, the way they’re shaking their behinds and going on, breaking it down,” said Edwards, a 26-year veteran of the Texas House. About the only redeeming thing in this idea is a middle-aged state legislator talking about young girls “shaking their behinds, breaking it down.”

Ruminations on Living Wage

by Gary Leff on March 15, 2005

Mar 15 2005

Further to my comments on rental car companies being subjected to San Jose’s ‘living wage’ rules, a reader writes: The main effect of raising car rental workers’ wages from $7.50 an hour to $9.66 an hour is that a certain number of honest working people, who are not on welfare and not on street corners selling drugs, will be making the princely sum of another $2.11 an hour — which will make it just a little easier for them to pay for their day care and their rent (although not enough to pay down their credit card balances). To me, that doesn’t seem like such a terrible thing. Why grope around for all of these abstruse and unproven second-order effects, plus make a guilt-by-association reference to apartheid, rather than focus on the main question —…

Minimum Wage Hike May Be Applied to San Jose Rental Car Employees

by Gary Leff on March 14, 2005

Mar 14 2005

Via Tripso Daily the San Jose Airport Commission has voted to recommend to the city council that airport rental car company employees be subject to the city’s ‘living wage’ rules. The average wage for the 700 or so employees is reportedly $7.50 an hour. Under the city’s living wage policy, the workers would make a minimum of $11.11 without benefits, or $9.66 an hour with benefits. The actual impact of minimum wage rules is always hard to predict. Increasing the minimum wage doesn’t always lead to unemployment as critics would suggest, often because the prevailing wage is already higher than the minimum wage. For instance, increasing the federal minimum wage to $6 wouldn’t have a tremendous impact on rental car employees at the airport, since their average wage is already more than that. At the…

How to destroy air travels and take away freedoms in one easy lesson

by Gary Leff on February 28, 2005

Feb 28 2005

Quick quiz: What does TSA stand for? (T)aking (S)cissors (A)way (T)housands (S)tanding (A)round (T)ourism (S)uppression (A)gency Before deciding, please consider that The Department of Homeland Security is drafting a rule that will require airlines to pass on passenger manifest information as much as an hour before the departure of international flights bound for the United States Requiring information to be submitted an hour before flight takeoff involves a full 75 minutes greater notice than currently provided. This will mean passengers turning up at the airport at least an additional hour in advance of flight time. Multiplied across all the passengers each day, that’s millions of lost productivity hours each year. The problem compounds itself for connecting flights. It’s as yet unclear whether a passenger will have to have arrived at a connecting airport before the…

My Point Blog

by Gary Leff on February 23, 2005

Feb 23 2005

Flyertalk welcomes a new blog, My Point by Joe Turner. Looks like posting has been going on for a couple weeks, though I just noticed it. Readers of this blog will probably enjoy that one. It’s also worth a mention that David Rowell has a new blog as well.