View from the Wing Archives.
Drug gangs are switching baggage tags onto drug-filled suitcases, leaving innocent passengers to get arrested for smuggling when the bags are intercepted. Plus: American’s “duct tape class,” Houston’s Centurion Lounge expansion, and calls to split FAA’s regulator and air traffic control roles.
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
Tuesday evening April 8, British Airways flight 2202 from Cancun to London Gatwick wound up delayed more than 24 hours after Mexican authorities carried out a significant drug raid on the aircraft.
I was well into my professional career before I ever had the opportunity to fly private. But I almost got the chance during one of my West Coast trips when I was 12.
The story begins with another odd experience of mine. I may have been one of the first white boys in the mid-80s to use ‘187’ as the term for murder.
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
A crypto businessman, Antônio Vinícius Lopes Gritzbach, was assassinated mid-afternoon at São Paulo’s Guarulhos International Airport yesterday. The shooting, which injured three bystanders, occurred outside domestic Terminal 2, in an attack attributed to criminal gang First Capital Command (PCC) which controls significant drug trafficking routes and tentacles across South American and European crime networks.
If you’re a drug smuggler you’re in a big money business. Checked bag fees shouldn’t be a binding constraint. And buying business class, which comes with more checked bags, is almost always more expensive than paying checked bag fees.
So when drug smugglers and their money launderers are said to be buying business class tickets for the greater checked bag allowance it sounds like the travel management challenges at any big company, where employees are looking for greater comfort and justifying it based on the needs of the business. Drug lords have travel policies, too, and their mules have to try to stay in scope!
This was a failure of U.S. authorities – suspecting someone as a drug courier over behaving like an airline employee. It was a failure of Canadian authorities, arresting someone based on a fallible test and locking them up for a week while slow-walking a real test. And it was a failure of the passenger, who didn’t secure legal representation (though as a 22 year old kid on an airline income that’s not surprising).
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
