Why U.S. Airports Are Designed for Everyone EXCEPT Passengers

by Gary Leff

billmurraykaraoke
Apr 06 2016

One of my all-time favorite songs is Roxy Music’s 1982 single ‘More Than This’ from their albom Avalon (it was covered by 10,000 Maniacs in 1997). I loved it as a kid, and am even more emotionally tied to it because of Bill Murray’s karaoke rendition in Lost in Translation.

Roxy Music’s Brian Eno recorded perhaps the greatest muzak ever, Music for Airports, in 1978.

Chris Holbrook asks in the New York Times why airports are ‘designed for everyone but the passenger’ and laments that many architects have forgotten the “obligation to please the people who use their space.” Holbrook begins by recounting the story of Brian Eno caring about the experience for people inside the airport, which airports often pay only lip service to. But it’s not at all surprising why this is.

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Here’s How to Save Money on Your Next Airline Ticket

by Gary Leff

Apr 06 2016

There’s no magic bullet day of week to book, but there are general rules for how far in advance to book. Know what tickets usually cost for your route. Learn airfare routing rules and how to search for discount inventory, and then piece together actual flights that have the lowest inventory buckets available. Buy one seat at a time even if you’re traveling as a pair.

Here’s what you need to know.

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What Virgin America is Telling Employees About Their Merger With Alaska

by Gary Leff

Apr 06 2016

Virgin America’s CEO sent a note to employees about being bought out by Alaska Airlines for $2.6 billion.

Most Virgin America employees will keep their jobs for the foreseeable future. Alaska Airlines doesn’t serve many of the cities that Virgin does. Alaska doesn’t have enough flight attendants and pilots to maintain Virgin’s operation without Virgin’s employees. Alaska’s pilots generally aren’t currently rated on Airbus equipment. Alaska’s mechanics aren’t either. And the Airbus equipment stays, at least for awhile.

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Join Competitours – the ‘Amazing Race For Regular People’ – FREE and Represent My Blog!

by Gary Leff

Apr 06 2016

Many of you know that I offer an award booking service. It grew too big to handle on my own, and I was fortunate enough to be able to partner with one of the real veterans and gurus in the frequent flyer game, Steve Belkin (known in online forums as ‘beaubo’).

Steve is most famous for exploiting loopholes in frequent flyer programs like Aeroplan and United’s MileagePlus in a truly big way, scaling opportunities to earn millions instead of thousands of miles. And in that pursuit he has hired disable Thai rice farmers to fly in and out of the Golden Triangle area of Thailand, and New Zealand college students to fly to Europe for the summer.

One of the really fun projects he’s had is called Competitours. Every summer, Steve disappears from work to run what the Chicago Tribune calls “The Amazing Race for Regular People.”

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