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News and notes from around the interweb:
- Man ordered to pay $36,000 to Air Canada to reimburse them for a scam I knew him on Flyertalk as mtacchi. I remember when he flew 350,000 miles in 61 days (he was in the air 56 out of 61 days) earning over 1 million Aeroplan miles. Apparently he was using a code meant for ‘secret shoppers’ in order to book free travel.
- Sad: Rat-infested British Airways Concorde rotting on London Heathrow tarmac
- One reason Delta, American, and United’s three year campaign for government protection from competition by Emirates, Etihad, and Qatar hasn’t seemed to go anywhere (yet?) with the Trump administration is that they’ve been using ex-Obama administration lobbyists who have said nasty things about Trump.
When the Senator from Delta Airlines inserted language into the tax reform bill aimed at harassing the Gulf carriers, it was killed by simply pointing out the things Delta’s lobbyists had said under the email subject line “Delta Lobbyists: RESIST”. However the Big 3 US carriers are learning from their lobbying mistakes and putting Republican lobbyists front and center instead.
- The woman who found Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee in her first class United seat (Rep. Jackson Lee represents United’s hub city of Houston) is asking for a Congressional ethics investigation. Good luck with that.
Since United didn't respond to my letters re treatment on flight #788, I've filed complaint with Office of Congressional Ethics. No case number, + according to OCE rules it cannot even disclose whether it will consider case, but I think it's important to keep this going forward. pic.twitter.com/eiqu9S8YJx
— Jean-Marie Simon (@JeanMarieSimon1) January 7, 2018
- British Airways improving long haul economy food (sort of)
- A haiku about Washington National’s gate 35. (HT: miffSC) Note that I would remove the second ‘very’ from the second line so that it would have seven syllables.
I’m so bored that I wrote a haiku about National Airport.
It’s my first poem in 42 years, so please, be kind:Gate 35-X
I hate it so very much
Crowded. Awful. Sad.— Steven Bennett (@steven_bennett2) January 8, 2018
Gary, any conversation about worse gate that doesn’t include the entire MCI airport is a waste of time. There’s more amenities at the DMV than MCI
35-x. Aka the trailer park.
I’d love to hear a justification for “very” being a one sylable word.
I was certain the worst gate would be none other than 35X.
@Evan, try counting again
@Tom: I don’t know why you want him to count again – using the word “very” twice results in nine syllables (or two too many).
Let me admit I misread Gary’s correction as if Gary HAD removed a “very” (from 3->2 verys) instead of he WOULD remove a very (2–>1).
My bad.
Gate 72 in LAX and on return from HNL gates 8, 10 and other gates for 777-200 departures in that area are a big disorganized nightmare every time we fly from it which is 12x/year. Would someone please tell me why is it so difficult to plan the boarding by using common sense? Why they do not allow the group 1 with assigned seats in front cabin board before the rest of group 1 who is sitting elsewhere? For 777-200 plane there is a line of 60 + in group 1 and there is no room for everyone to even stand in that line. Plus all other passengers who just do not pay attention to “rules” and stand in group 1 while being a group 4 or whatever. This is just so annoying. Where is the logic? Someone please explain who designs the boarding process? Thank you.