News and notes from around the interweb:
- Denver ethics board appalled by airport executives’ travel spending. They spent as much as $19,000 per business class ticket roundtrip from Denver to Madrid. You have to try really hard to spend $19,000 on a simple business class roundtrip to Europe. My bet has been they were on a MileagePlus status run on the public dime.
The airport’s CEO said that if he’d known the tickets were so expensive, he never would have allowed the trip. But he approved the cost in writing, in advance. He defended the tickets, saying everyone had to ‘hit the ground running’ but actually didn’t appear on program panels until 2-3 days after arrival. He described attending the annual conference as a ‘once in a lifetime opportunity’.
Remember that airport CEO Phil Washington was nominated to run the FAA, but exposed as wholly unqualified for the position. He comes across here as wholly unqualified for this one, as well. But the bigger reason is how the airport’s train system keeps breaking down…
- Solo passenger. Bulkhead window. Checks out.
They must be sociopaths, right‽
byu/Familiar_Eggplant_76 inamericanairlines - Don’t be an idiot and try to bring your stupid tipping to Japan
- The beatings will continue until morale improves (or until consumer behavior shifts away and demonstrates an annual fee upper bound).
Amex’s avg. fee per card has climbed 3.5x since ’07, from $32 to $117
byu/Quartr-app inamex - An airline so bad, even Pakistan’s regulators won’t let it fly.
- New British Airways premium economy seats. Totally generic-looking, to be honest.
Stolen from Linkdln, some picture of the new improved BA World Traveller Plus seat! It’ll be fitted to the -9s at the same time as their Club suites, although I can’t help but wonder why the -8s weren’t done during their refits… pic.twitter.com/kWQoIAnu9S
— Andy Monks ✈️ (@AndythePandy_) October 4, 2025
- Actually, the future would be designated areas that protect other riders and drivers alike from non-autonomous vehicles.
San Jose Airport now has designated pickup areas for autonomous vehicle ridesharing services.
Welcome to the future. pic.twitter.com/cEp6n9fg7e
— Nic Cruz Patane (@niccruzpatane) October 3, 2025
Seems simple: Charge them personally for whatever amount was unreasonable. I don’t care what background, race, ethnicity, gender, partisan affiliation, etc. someone is… corruption is bad. Let’s do something about it. Transparency and accountability is possible, large and small.
I’ve long argued that any government employee (included elected officials) should be required by law to sit in a middle seat in the rear third of the airplane. While we’re at it, bring back the requirement that any accrued “miles” or status upgrades go back to the government as well.
The DIA airport authority is an odd organization. I work in government contracting and they are the single most difficult counterparty I’ve worked with (including the feds). They were unafraid of ad hominem attacks and tactical delays. They have a culture that makes it difficult to solve the obvious problems at that airport.
The Denver Board of Ethics seems challenged.