With Nearly 2000 TSA Employees Testing Positive For Covid, They Keep Patting Down Passengers Every Day

by Gary Leff

96 year old woman in wheelchair
Sep 22 2020

While flights don’t seem to be significant causes of virus spread the same may not be true of other parts of the travel experience. 1812 TSA employees have tested positive for Covid-19. 92% of those are airport screeners. Miami has had 122 screeners test positive. New York JFK has had 112. And these numbers don’t include the most recent testing.

According to a former TSA federal security director it’s insane that the TSA continues with pat downs which he says are unnecessary.

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Woman Melts Down When American Airlines Kicks Her Two Year Old Off For Not Wearing A Mask

by Gary Leff

Sep 21 2020

Rachel Starr Davis was fleeing a hurricane in Florida last week, connecting to American Airlines flight 5595 from Charlotte to Manchester, New Hampshire. Before pushback a flight attendant approached her and asked how old her son is.

The two year old boy wouldn’t wear a mask, despite in his mother’s words ‘begging, bribing, pleading’ but he screamed and cried as she “tried to hold him and put the mask on.”

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The American Airlines CEO Took A Southwest Flight Attendant To Dinner To Talk About Race

by Gary Leff

Sep 21 2020

In late May American Airlines CEO Doug Parker had a personal interaction with a Southwest Airlines flight attendant over race that went viral after he flew the airline and was carrying the book White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard For White People To Talk About Racism which had been recommended by a board member months earlier, but that he’d put aside distracted by the coronavirus crisis.

He and his wife continue that conversation.

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The 31 Strange Steps Thailand Wants Visitors To Go Through As It Re-Opens

by Gary Leff

Sep 21 2020

There are many things about Thailand that look strange to outsiders but to locals are simply ‘very Thai’. And while there’s increasing pushback against the monarchy (despite lese majeste laws) and against a military junta that last year had to clarify they wouldn’t actually execute tourists for taking selfies at the Phuket airport there’s still much acceptance of things as they are, without reason or justification.

It may even seem perfectly normal that as Thailand looks at how they can re-open to tourism amidst the global pandemic that putting potential visitors through a 31 step process that involves prepaying a 90 day hotel stay can seem perfectly normal.

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New Studies Reporting Covid-19 Transmission On Planes Are Good News!

by Gary Leff

Sep 20 2020

Documenting just a handful of cases where inflight spread may have occurred is significant as an argument for the safety of flying because there’s never been a virus studied as extensively and intensively in a short period of time as this one. There are millions of people flying throughout the world week after week during the global pandemic, yet we haven’t been able to identify more flights where the virus spread (though there are probably some). This – combined with airline cabin crew having a lower incidence of Covid-19 than the general population, is highly suggestive that inflight spread is very rare.

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A Detroit Rapper Charged The Cockpit And Punched A Gate Agent. Now TSA Is Investigating.

by Gary Leff

Sep 20 2020

On August 31 Cherrae, who identifies herself as a Detroit rap artist, boarded Spirit Airlines flight 1839 from Las Vegas to Nashville.

According to a report I’ve seen, she was seated in one of Spirit’s “Big Front Seats” and prior to departure a flight attendant asked her several times to wear her mask properly over her nose and mouth. The flight attendant reported that she wouldn’t comply. Things, shall we say, escalated.

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