Man Lives in Airport Because He Couldn’t Afford Change Fee on Ticket

by Gary Leff

flyscoop plane boarding dock
Sep 06 2018

Mehran Karimi Nasseri is the man behind the Tom Hanks film The Terminal. He spent 18 years living in Paris Charles de Gaulle airport’s terminal 1. He reported being kicked out of Iran for protesting the Shah, and eventually granted refugee status in Belgium. He moved to the UK, but lost his papers when he says his briefcase was stolen.

Recently a Taiwanese man spent more than a week living in the Perth, Australia airport but not because he lacked documents. He ran out of money and was waiting to fly home in several weeks. He couldn’t afford to change his ticket on Singapore Airlines low cost carrier Scoot.

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Customers Who Have Booked on the British Airways Website Just Had Their Payment Details Stolen

by Gary Leff

british airways plane
Sep 06 2018

British Airways issued a press release saying that the “personal and financial details” of customers that have used its website and mobile app to book travel have been stolen, but that this does not include travel details (itineraries) or passport information. This all happened late Wednesday night London time, From 22:58 BST August 21 2018 until 21:45 BST September 5 2018 inclusive, the personal and financial details of customers making bookings on ba.com and the airline’s app were compromised. The breach has been resolved and our website is working normally. They say they’re reaching out to customers they believe have been affected, but that anyone worried about it should “contact their banks or credit card providers” and do whatever those companies suggest. In other words they have no suggestions and aren’t funding options at this…

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American Reveals How They’re Doing Improving Award Availability

by Gary Leff

american plane
Sep 06 2018

The percentage of American Airlines seats occupied by award customers has been lower than that of competitor airlines and had been declining ever since US Airways management took over at the airline. American was been filling about 6% of seats with awards compared to nearly 8% at United and Delta and 13% at Southwest.

AAdvantage President Bridget Blaise-Shamai reported in June that they’re “on a path towards putting our availability much more closer to the competitive levels of like a Delta or a United.”

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TSA Security Screening Bins Have More Germs Than the Monkey in Outbreak

by Gary Leff

morgan freeman in movie outbreak in hazmat suit
Sep 06 2018

The TSA makes most travelers take off their shoes, many go barefoot on germ-laden floors. And most of us assumed, I think, that they weren’t doing much to wash or sanitize bins.

Your fellow sick passengers touch the bins, they even put their dirty tissue sand handkerchiefs in them before going through the nude-o-scope. TSA employees get gloves to wear, passengers don’t.

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Media Mogul and Hotel Owner Denied Check-in Because He Wouldn’t Take Off Prescription Sunglasses

by Gary Leff

outside resort
Sep 06 2018

Robert L. Johnson is best known for founding BET, Black Entertainment Television in 1979 and selling it to Viacom for $3 billion in 2000. He serves on boards like Lowe’s, the NBA Board of Governors, the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture and is a past board member of Hilton Hotels, General Mills, and the United Negro College Fund.

He’s an accomplished man, he’s well traveled, and he owns hotels — his RLJ Lodging Trust owns about 150 of them. So he’s certainly used to checking into hotels. But not this one.

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Marriott Fixes Program Rules for Suite Upgrades, Platinums Now Entitled to Standard Suites

by Gary Leff

hotel
Sep 05 2018

When the new Marriott program launched their terms and conditions said that Platinums would get an upgrade if available at check-in to an ‘enhanced room’. That’s not what we were promised.

The terms now say that a Platinum is to receive an upgrade to the best room available up to and including suites. Of course there are some limitations.

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Guess Who Says He Was On the Quarantined Emirates Flight Today? This is Awesome

by Gary Leff

private airplane bar
Sep 05 2018

This morning an Emirates flight was quarantined on arrival at New York JFK with sick passengers on board.

Some initial reports suggested that 100 were ill. Emirates said it was 10. The most recent information we have is that 19 passengers were deemed to have medical issues. Ten were transported to the hospital, while nine declined medical treatment and were released.

What do we know at this point? That Vanilla Ice says he was on board.

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