News and notes from around the interweb:
- TIL: Oklahoma City airport has a terminal that’s an actual prison. Perhaps only Janet’s flights are more unusual.
The Federal Transfer Center opened in 1995 and is a hub for the Justice Prisoner and Alien Transportation System. This federal program moves inmates throughout the country on different Boeing 737 aircraft.
The U.S. Marshals Service describes JPATS as “the only government-operated, regularly scheduled passenger airline in the nation.” These flight operations, the agency says, have more security than commercial airlines.
- Scottish Hiker Detained At Delhi Airport For Carrying Banned Garmin Inreach GPS Device; Here’s Why It Is Banned In India (HT: Enirlia)
- United Airlines responses to customer complaints are now AI-generated.
- IHG quietly changed the rules for its lounge membership option as part of its Milestone Rewards program for 2025. The change effectively closes a loophole that let you get a lounge membership for up to 24 months by timing when you earned and chose the reward.
- Top 10 architectural hotels of last year
- 22-year Air France captain quits due to environmental guilt over the job
- “On Dec. 27, Jerome Gutierrez of Hillsborough was traveling in business class on UA Flight 189 from SFO to Manila when, according to his stepdaughter, a man got up from his seat and began urinating on him about four hours into the flight.” That means 11 hours were left in the flight… apparently he’s angry United didn’t divert, which warrants the reminder that it’s better to be pissed off than pissed on.
On the United AI story: As long as UA replies with a courtesy gift of 5-10K MileagePlus points to me, then who am I to care whether it is a robot or a human who is having to complete that thankless job.
15 years ago or so I carried GPS hand-held receivers in India. Glad to have avoided that lady’s problems.
Another reason to not fly United. The flight flew over Hawaii per FlightAware (probably due to storms in the northern Pacific) so diverting would have been actually reasonable but it may have been problematic for the hours of the crew. Since passengers peeing on others is becoming more common, temporary clothing as well as full body cleaning supplies are needed on flights. I wonder if the offender was restrained on the rest of the flight, maybe with thick cable ties. No information on any compensation from the airline.
I recently had a broken seat in domestic F on UA discovered prior to take off and the gate agent came on board, recorded the incident on a handheld and offered me instant compensation (choice of miles or ETC). I wonder what the menu options show in such a situation over the Pacific?
UA made the right call by not diverting.
Next week on TPG: “I booked a free flight on JPATS, and you can too!”