Great Things Are Happening In The Air, Special Moments Trump The Misery

by Gary Leff

Jul 15 2022

Air travel connects the world. People fly for a purpose. They’re visiting friends and family, attending to important business, and connecting. Sometimes they connect with each other, through the randomness of seat assignments. And sometimes it’s the little connections with employees along the way, because it’s one human helping out another and taking a moment engage as people.

Seven moments shared to social media with photos or video stood out to me in just twenty four hours, showing that in a single day there’s a lot of good in the air, and on the ground.

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How Uber Started To Suck

by Gary Leff

phone with uber on it
Jul 15 2022

Uber’s public relations disasters were myriad five years ago. Drivers hated them. Story after story came out about their hubris, their regulatory problems, and their toxic workplace culture.

They’ve turned around that narrative, but the narrative now is that they’re just no longer a great product. They’re on demand transportation that’s often more expensive than a cab. They’re deliver for cold food that takes too long and now often makes stops between picking up your meal and bringing it to you. And they’re very little else.

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Woman Fined $1750 For Failing To Declare Half A Subway Sandwich At Customs

by Gary Leff

Jul 15 2022

A woman picked up a Subway sandwich in the Singapore airport before her flight to Perth, Australia. She only ate half of it – and for some reason brought the leftovers with her. Perhaps she wanted to find out first hand just how sick an unrefrigerated fast food sandwich will make you after a five hour flight.

She failed to declare the remains of her foot long at customs when she arrived back in Australia, and was fined ~ US$1750.

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American Airlines Changed Their Itinerary, Demanded Family Pay $30,000 To Fix It

by Gary Leff

Jul 14 2022

A family of 9 passengers says that American Airlines ran a schedule change, and rebooked their return flight from a different country without telling them. They checked their seat assignments online – it’s always important to garden your reservations and check that nothing has changed – and found that their return trip was all wrong (and they weren’t sitting together on the wrong flights, either!).

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Passenger Shoves Carry On Bag Into The Sizer To Show It Fits, But Couldn’t Get The Bag Out

by Gary Leff

Jul 14 2022

If your bag fits in the sizer at the gate, you can take it on board, because its dimensions are within the rules your airline has set for carry ons. At least that is how it is supposed to work.

Passengers bring things that don’t fit all the time, and gate agents don’t enforce the rules until they do. But if challenged, the sizer is supposed to be a neutral arbiter. One passenger decided to take this to the extreme.

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South African Airways Flies With Water In The Fuel Tanks, Engines Surge

by Gary Leff

south african airways
Jul 13 2022

Three months ago a South African Airways Airbus A330 from Accra, Ghana to Johannesburg reported both engines surging while over Botswana. The aircraft, with 209 people on board, continued the final 50 minutes to Johannesburg even as surges continued on final approach.

Reportedly the airline had just changed fuel suppliers in Accra. And after water had been drained from the fuel system, the aircraft was signed off for a ferry flight back to South Africa – with no passengers – but a full complement of passengers was loaded anyway.

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Earn Double Hyatt Points At MGM Resorts In Las Vegas Through October 15

by Gary Leff

mandalay bay
Jul 13 2022

there’s good value here. It presaged the Hyatt-SLH partnership, and offers the opportunity to credit cheap Las Vegas midweek stays for elite status. I also hope this promotion drives a lot of business to MGM since I’ve heard rumblings out of MGM that they’ve been somewhat ambivalent about the partnership.

Of course Hyatt will be gaining a bigger foothold in Vegas in its own right, bringing multiple brands to prime real estate as part of the renovation and rebranding of the old 2500-room Rio.

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