Category Archives for Passengers.
Chicago-based photographer named Alex Garcia was traveling back from Havana and overnighted in Miami on Thursday. After waiting for hours to clear passport control he headed to the baggage carousel for his luggage, but he couldn’t find his bag.
He’d placed an AirTag in it, and he knew that it left the airport. Police there were uninterested. So he decided to chase it down himself.
Mayor Cantrell says it’s unsafe for a black woman to fly economy. Issues of race and gender aside, I know that many readers find coach to be an unsafe space.
For twenty years I’ve been writing that every article on how to get an upgrade is wrong. There’s no secret phrase like ‘revenue management’. And ‘dressing nicely’ doesn’t usually matter because upgrades with most airlines are based on an algorithm – that may take into account (for instance) your frequent flyer status and the fare you paid.
Then a Delta Air Lines gate agent goes and does this: holds a “dance off” at the gate for an upgrade. And I start to wonder whether everything I’ve ever written about upgrades is wrong?
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, known for arriving at the airport “hours early for flights to avoid mishaps and to ensure choice space in overhead compartments,” was spotted today flying coach on Delta to Detroit today to give a speech. She was relegated to row 19.
A woman wasn’t allow to board a Southwest flight because a flight attendant says she was intoxicated. The passenger, though, says she was just “doing cartwheels and back bends” to entertain a crying little girl.
The flight attendant interpreted the cartwheels as being “engaging, loud, you want[ing] attention from everybody.” And the woman was seen drinking alcohol – one glass of wine.
On a recent Jet2 flight from Manchester, U.K. to Rhodes, Greece, an elderly woman slapped a member of the cabin crew because she was denied champagne. Another flight attendant restrains her. And the flight diverts to Munich, Germany where she was arrested.
A new meme out of China, ‘suitcase bowling’, is taking over the internet. As I write a version of the video shortened and celebrating a bowling strike as a suitcase falls down an escalator and takes out a passenger at the bottom has been viewed over 8 million times.
Two people at the top of the escalator tried to send their bag down on its own. However it didn’t stay upright – tossing itself down and gaining momentum until a way – who sees it coming and tries to outrun it – gets knocked down.
Airlines are one of the most small-d democratic experiences we have, where people from all walks of life with all kinds of backgrounds, experiences, and emotional baggage (the only kind of baggage the airlines won’t charge for) come together inside of a metal tube. We’re all different in our own way, and it takes a little bit of time after we wake up before we’re ready to conform. If you’re stuck flying at 5 o’clock in the morning, you do you..
Sam Bowman reports that he was flying Virgin Atlantic in economy. He reclined his seat, he says, in order “to sleep and the grown man behind me started violently shaking and kicking my seat.” After the violent passenger was told to stop, “his wife loudly declared that I was a sociopath.”
The important point to make here, aside from the obvious “don’t physically shake the seat of the person in front of you” is that a passenger whose seat reclines gets to decide whether to put that seat in the upright or reclined position, outside of takeoff and landing where the government makes the decision for them. It’s not always appropriate to recline, but the decision belongs to the passenger whose seat it is.
Hend Bustami, a former food runner at Chateau Nightclub, server assistant at Momofuku and lifeguard at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, was arrested at the Las Vegas airport after allegedly doing at dine and dash at the Chili’s in terminal D.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
