After 31 Years Black Boxes from the Eastern Airlines Crash in the Andes Have Been Found!

by Gary Leff

Jun 05 2016

One of the great aviation mysteries is what happened to Eastern Airlines flight 900, which crashed into the mountains near La Paz, Bolivia in 1981. On-site investigations didn’t commence for months after the crash and the airframe wasn’t discovered for 25 years. The cause of the demise of the Boeing 727 was never positively confirmed.

On New Year’s Day 1985, Eastern 980 — a flight from Asunción to Miami via La Paz and Guayaquil — departed from Asunción at 5:57 pm with 19 passengers (including the wide of the US Ambassador to Paraguay and 2 pilots) and 10 crew.

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Always Bolt the Door! Hotel Where Room Keys Open Every Door

by Gary Leff

Jun 05 2016

Choice Privileges members, beware the Rodeway Inn in Gallup, New Mexico where every room key was opening every guest room.

I suspect you’d find this far more frequently at a small family-owned property than a corporate-owned full service hotel, but it could happen anywhere by mistake perhaps not for every room but for a given room — the one you have.

And even when the issue isn’t so extreme as every room key being coded as a master key, or every door accepting any key, hotel front desk staff can assign someone to the wrong room or give out a key to someone they shouldn’t.

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Behind the Scenes Gossip in Online Travel Booking

by Gary Leff

Jun 04 2016

Skift has developed an amazing piece on the birth of online travel, collecting stories that help shape our understanding of how we got to where we are today, at least from a business perspective.

At a macro-level, online booking put the traditional brick and mortar travel agencies out of business. There’s still a significant role for travel specialists in high end trips. But there has to be a large margin to cover human intervention in travel, something that doesn’t make sense for basic air or hotel bookings.

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Passenger Kicked Off Flight for Photographing Flight Attendant’s Buttocks

by Gary Leff

Jun 04 2016

In April a passenger on an Indian domestic flight had his cell phone confiscated and was arrested on arrival for shooting video of flight attendants. The passenger was charged with “assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty.”

Last week on a Flybe hop from Dublin to Cardiff on an ERJ190 regional jet a passenger took “inappropriate pictures” of a flight attendant during her safety demonstration.

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Club Carlson Now Offers Free and Easy Elite Status Matches

by Gary Leff

Jun 04 2016

They aren’t asking for an online statement to even demonstrate stay activity in the program with which you have status. So presumably free hotel status, such as Starwood Gold or Hilton Gold that comes with the American Express Platinum card or Hilton Gold via the Citi Hilton Reserve Card would suffice provided you have a membership card to send them (although even without a card I’d still suggest submitting a screen shot showing your status, and mentioning the program didn’t send you your membership card — which could be a frustrating reason you’d want to switch).

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What Websites Should You Use to Search for Award Availability?

by Gary Leff

Jun 03 2016

You’d think you could type in where you’re flying from and where you’re going and get a list of available flights. In fact, most customers think this because it’s perfectly logical. But it’s often not the case.

Most airlines don’t show availability of awards on all of their partners on their own websites and don’t show all options even for their own flights.

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