Flight to Los Angeles Rains Down Glowing Engine Pieces By the Hundreds on People Below

by Gary Leff

plane on runway
Aug 12 2019

A Norwegian Boeing 787-8 took off from Rome Fiumicino enroute to Los Angeles as flight DY7115 on Saturday. As it climbed from runway 16R, one of its Rolls Royce Trent 1000 engines suffered an uncontained failure. Pieces of the engine — described as “glowing pieces of metal” rained down on the town below “in the hundreds.”

The pilot stopped climbing at 3000 feet and returned to the same runway 23 minutes after takeoff with all 310 passengers and crew on board safe. However 12 homes and 25 vehicles were reportedly damaged by falling parts. One person was actually hit, but wasn’t injured.

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Hong Kong Departing Flights Cancelled as Protesters Take Over Airport, No United/American Travel Waivers

by Gary Leff

Aug 12 2019

Clashes between police and democracy protesters have escalated. Here an officer arrests a man on Sunday night, pressing his knee into the man’s face pushing him into his own pooling blood as he calls out “Don’t do this. I’m begging you.” There were 45 protesters injured over the weekend. Of those 25 remain in the hospital.

Spurred on by the government’s increasingly violent crackdown, protesters occupied the airport on Monday. Traffic came to a standstill and protesters crossed the roads leading in and out. All departures were cancelled for the rest of the day.

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Fly American’s New Casablanca Flight in Business From $772 Roundtrip

by Gary Leff

Aug 11 2019

American Airlines is launching summer seasonal service between Casablanca, Morocco and Philadelphia with a Boeing 757 offering lie flat seats in business class. This leverages their new oneworld partnership with Royal Air Maroc, that will allow for connections around Africa and the Mideast.

American has filed a really cheap fare originating in Casablanca to myriad cities in the U.S. and back.

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Two Airports Are Up For the Best Public Restroom in America Award

by Gary Leff

seatac restroom
Aug 11 2019

You’d never expect a U.S. airport to be nominated for the country’s best public restroom. At Dallas Fort-Worth, for instance, when they renovated the A terminal they didn’t even refresh the bathrooms and when they re-do terminal C they’ve scaled back the budget so there’s no money to do the restrooms there, either.

However a new restroom in Seattle’s North Satellite terminal is a finalist for American’s best. And so is a restroom in the refreshed New York LaGuardia Terminal B. Say what?

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United Passenger Recorded People in the Lavatory, How He Was Caught Proves He’s a Moron

by Gary Leff

united-planes-runway
Aug 11 2019

A Halliburton employee has been charged with “video voyeurism within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States.” How he was caught is incredible. He inadvertently taped himself installing the recording device in the lavatory. United “watched the footage and saw a man installing the device in the bathroom in first class on that same flight.” That’s pretty good evidence.

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What are the Best – and Most Garbage – Airports in the U.S.?

by Gary Leff

airport
Aug 10 2019

The best airports are the ones get are easiest to get to and get through. They make your travel more efficient, rather than adding to an already cumbersome and stressful experience. That has little to do with how much high-end retail there is (airports offer expensive shopping for their benefit, not for yours).

That means the best airports are close-in, and once you get there security is near the entrance and gates are near security. There’s enough taxiway space and runway capacity to handle flights, too, minimizing delays.

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Do Coach Passengers Suffer Because First Class is Getting Worse?

by Gary Leff

Aug 10 2019

Christopher Elliott bends himself into a pretzel to support whatever new narrative produces a pro-consumer, anti-business, populist column. He used to argue that coach passengers were subsidizing first class. He used to argue that loyalty programs are bad for you and should be avoided and also that the existence of first class was an affront to democracy.

Elliott seems to forget which direction traffic flowed over the Berlin Wall, and indeed not to realize that even North Korea’s Air Koryo and Cuba’s Cubana de Aviacion offer business class.

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