News and notes from around the interweb:
- The day before the fatal Lion Air 737 MAX crash in October the same aircraft reportedly had the same problems but a pilot riding in the jumpseat helped the crew navigate the issue.
- Turkish is denying this rumor:
Breaking: Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al Baker announced the acquisition and a 49% stake in Turkish Airlines. Is this the beginning of privatization of Turkish government owned companies to raise much needed funds. @BeratAlbayrak any comments? pic.twitter.com/M08EkEKeLQ
— Harry Theocharous (@TheocharousH) March 20, 2019
- When a President says they have ‘full confidence’ in a member of their cabinet, it’s days before the cabinet official departs for ‘personal reasons’. The CEO of Etihad calls reports that they’re close to being acquired by Emirates ‘clownesque’.
- Etiquette for leaving a hotel room (‘RTs aren’t endorsements’)
- Trevor Noah on the FAA and Boeing 737 MAX. Funny – don’t get your facts about the investigation from Trevor Noah, though.
- Gordon Ramsey wants the Department of Transportation to grant American Airlines the right to fly Las Vegas – Tokyo Haneda.
Gordon Ramsay has written to the US government to formally support American Airlines' application for a Tokyo Haneda slot to launch service to Las Vegas.
Viva Las Haneda! pic.twitter.com/PYxzJEMRNo
— Will Horton (@winglets747) March 19, 2019
Thank God, Gary, you don’t endorse the nonsense on Lifehacker. I’m just going to repeat the top-voted comment from their own post, here, as I do endorse it — all of it, actually.
> See, I don’t understand any of this at all. I book a hotel room so I have somewhere to sleep when I’m not doing what I’m in town to do. The job of housekeeping is to refresh the room after I’ve used it. I’m not gonna trash the room, but why should I do their job for them? If I want privacy, I need to feel bad about how that affects their work numbers? Yeah, no. This isn’t etiquette. This is ludicrous.
This article seems to suggest that a couple staying in a hotel room should tip $20 per night. Gary, I would love to hear your take on whether the owner of the hotel is clearing $20 per night per room. I suspect anything below 5* they are not.
How to leave a hotel room? A typical stay is $3,000 per month at $100/night. Just leave it, and don’t worry about it. Leave it in a way that allows you to keep your travel schedule and doesn’t make you regret travelling. If you have OCD and want to clean everything, go for it. If you are normal, let housekeeping clean up for you. Who doesn’t appreciate a properly made bed, clean floor, and fresh towels every day? As for the tip, $3-$5/day, highly dependent on the country and room rate. Be mindful of your valuables, so that when you forget where you put them, you don’t blame housekeeping for taking them, and then find them right where you left them– on the counter — at home. Awkward.
I too hope AA gets the HND-LAS slot. I think they’ll get it, as it’s currently unserved. Almost all the other requests are expanding capacity. Delta asking for HND-HNL is pretty unlikely. With ANA about to launch A380 service from NRT, it seems like there would be a supply glut. I’m disappointed nobody asked for another SFO-HND slot, but that was a longshot anyway.
WTH is Gordon Ramsey thinking with his title’s? (No pun intended.) He will need to move his signature line to the left three inches after he is knighted or if he ever gets promoted to CEO and Chairman of the Board. Heaven forbid that he gets a full 3 stars in a Michelin Guide. Microfont’s would be an insult, so that means he will need at least two pages for every letter he writes. So, please try to award him no more than two of the three possible stars.
Could AA possibly have offered him exclusive food prep rights for this flight, or do you think he just wants a non-stop to Tokyo for personal reasons?
But seriously, despite the typo on this otherwise perfectly crafted letter (las instead of Las), he is right that this route kind of makes sense.
I had a very earnest enthusiastic housekeeper in Malta over Christmas, a young lady from Nepal. Was glad I kept the room relatively clean, threw the trash away, and tipped her properly. She was working nonstop all day long every day. When you think of the housekeeping staff as actual human beings with families, with bills to pay, and with lives of their own you then have some empathy for the hard work they do day in and day out.
I pretty much disagree with 100% of lifehacker. I’m paid to work for my company, not to clean my room. The staff is paid to clean the room. I am sorry that it is a crappy job (Nickel and Dimed provides a nice overview) but it pays better than many jobs than immigrants can get in their country of origin. It is not my job to compensate the hotel staff – that is included in my room charge. It is not a difficult job to follow a checklist and yet I uniformly find that staff fails to replace some item that I have used.
Gentle Reader,
Miss Manners recommends you enjoy yourself on vacation and not concern yourself with providing hospitality services to the hospitality staff .
Flushing the toilet is about the only etiquette required, unless you enjoy the odor otherwise permeating the room.
Gentle Reader,
Miss Manners recommends you enjoy yourself on vacation and not concern yourself with providing hospitality services to the hospitality staff .
Flushing the toilet is about the only etiquette required, unless you enjoy the odor otherwise permeating the room.
Be sure to make the bed before you leave, that way housekeeping doesn’t need to change the sheets for the next guest.
Not long ago @gary or someone else suggested pulling sheets off the bed before leaving so they’d make sure to change them.