News and notes from around the interweb:
- World’s tallest woman buys six seats in order to fly. Rumeysa Gelgi is over 7 feet tall. Turkish Airlines removed six seats from a plane and replaced them with a stretcher.
- My toxic trait is I believe a customer shouldn’t be charged when an airline doesn’t deliver the advertised product.
Hey @AmericanAir is this what a first class ticket pays for? An inoperable tray table on a cross country flight??? pic.twitter.com/GoYnWSaOO4
— RC (@RichardCinAZ) June 16, 2025
- Southwest Airlines flight attendants will do less cleaning onboard going forward. (Yes, unlike most other iarlines they do cleanup between flights.)
- Los Angeles passed an insane $30 tourism minimum wage requiring 76% more payment for the same job at a hotel than at a coffee shop across the street. It’s mostly leverage for UNITE HERE and other unions to organize, because employers can get exemption from this by signing a union contract.
United, Delta, and hotels are funding a referendum to repeal the law. UNITE HERE says the campaign is lying to get put on the ballot.
- Amtrak has a hand wavy plan to cover marginal costs by fiscal 2028 if they’re given more money Harumph.
- Terry Bradshaw accosted at TSA, “‘I’m the Unabomber’”
- Drunk Karen Refuses To Get Off Delta Flight, Forces Police To Clear Entire Plane
For both the Southwest and LA stories above, it’s not insane, and yes, the workers should be paid more.
Gary, unrelated to this post, but, Amex transfers to Emirates are now working again. Probably not great timing with everything going on in that part of the world, but for those making a booking or upgrading using points, good to have back, still 1:1. Also, you don’t have to have status to ‘upgrade’ to First. Just did this for the a380 from Business to First. 70K points for something that would otherwise cost a small fortune. Pumped. I bet even those First seats could fit the 7 foot tall girl.
“Amtrak has a hand wavy plan to cover marginal costs by fiscal 2028 if they’re given more money”
Amtrak has been waving that hand for decades.
$30/hr is about $60k/year. That’s considered ‘very low income’ for Los Angeles.
“Workers in the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area had an average (mean) hourly wage of $36.64 in May 2024, compared to the nationwide average of $32.66, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.”
Wages haven’t gone up that much over the last year. $30 an hour is less than average but not by a tremendous amount. A household with a $30 an hour worker and a $20 an hour worker will have over $100,000 in total wages if both work full time. Not great, but enough to pay the bills as long as the lifestyle is modest. Those making $20 an hour would be very happy to have a $30 an hour job. People you may interact with every day making those wages include grocery store workers and fast food workers. People not from the Los Angeles area may have an unrealistic view of the wages that many make.