News notes from around the interweb:
- Airplane and airport face masks
- Cities are demanding your full trip data from Uber and Lyft
Imagine flying to Los Angeles for the last of several confidential meetings to discuss the acquisition of another company. You hail an Uber at the airport, as you have done repeatedly over the last several months. Given your ride history, an LADOT employee can access enough trip data to identify you, and they’re familiar with you and your industry. Their personal beliefs strongly clash with yours, and in this tribal era of politics, they decide to leak the nature of your visits to the press.
- Virgin Australia has 19 potential buyers
- One theory that airlines might ban carry on bags as part of their response to COVID-19. This one doesn’t make sense to me.
- Avatar Airlines is appealing the DOT’s decision not to permit the company to move forward as an airline. It’s been decades in the making with, in my view, one fraud after the next.
- Hyatt lays off 1300 employees
- UK regulator warns airlines that they have to honor refunds for cancelled flights.
I got this face mask for $10 and love it!
https://teechip.com/flights-of-fancy-facemask
Re: Uber and Lyft tracking, the app for years have been tracking people even after the ride concludes. I’ve had sensitive meetings or just didn’t want a digital record of where I was going, so I’ve turned my phone off once I concluded the ride. We’ve been giving up privacy for convenience for sometime now.
The two biggest benefits to a policy of restricting carry-ons would be (as mentioned in the article) folks hopefully not getting into the gate lice situation at the gate. Another definite benefit would be reduced boarding times due to folks not needing to look for space for their carry-on, especially later in the boarding process. This would mean less bunching in the aisles and therefore lower exposure. Not necessarily in favor of such a policy, but I do think those are worthwhile benefits.