Gas Prices Cause Airline to Remove Life Vests

Air Canada’s regional carrier Jazz is removing life vests from all its planes to save weight and fuel.

Jazz spokeswoman Manon Stuart said Thursday Transport Canada regulations allow airlines to use floatation devices instead of life vests provided the planes remain within 50 miles (80 kilometers) of shore.

50 miles? Just how far do they think I can swim?

IATA: Airlines will lose US$5.2 billion in 2008

The Air Transport Association (IATA) has said it is predicting that airlines will lose US$5.2 billion in 2008, due to slowing demand and high oil prices. Fuel is expected to rise to 36 percent of operating costs, up from 13 percent in 2002.

Why airline reregulation is no longer taboo

I spotted a surprising article that I spotted this week on airline de-regulation. de-regulation has general been held as a good thing that led to increased competition, lower fares and more flights. But some have started to question the downsides of this landmark change in 1978.

One observer with a unique perspective is Robert Crandall, the former chairman of American Airlines and a recognized industry leader — for better or worse — during his tenure in the business. In a speech before the Wings Club in New York City in June, Crandall noted the following: “The consequences (of deregulation) have been very adverse. Our airlines, once world leaders, are now laggards in every category, including fleet age, service quality and international reputation. Fewer and fewer flights are on time. Airport congestion has become a staple of late-night comedy shows. An even higher percentage of bags are lost or misplaced. Last-minute seats are harder and harder to find. Passenger complaints have skyrocketed. Airline service, by any standard, has become unacceptable.”

Australia issues travel advisory warns of high risks for travelers to US

In a fresh travel advisory issued on Sunday, the Australian government’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has warmed of “high risks” of terror attacks on domestic and international flights in and to the United States.

Sure, but what about those of us who are already here?

Delta, JetBlue and NYC airports highlight list of chronically delayed flights

Delta subsidiary Comair flew the eight most chronically delayed flights in July, including three that arrived late every time they flew. Overall, 19 of the nation’s 30 most-chronically delayed flights flew under the Delta logo, though all of the offending flights were operated by Delta’s regional affilaites and not by Delta itself. The worst performer was Comair Flight 5292 from Minneapolis/St. Paul to New York JFK, which arrived late all 31 times it flew in July, the latest month for which data is available from the Department of Transportation (page 14). The average delay for Flight 5292: 134 minutes. That flight also arrived late every time it flew in June, as well, arriving behind schedule by an average of 123 minutes during that month.

Is that really fair? Do you know how hard it is for people in Minnesota to say goodbyes?

Chill out, comfortably, at these ‘ice lounges’

Minus5 Las Vegas (as in minus 5 degrees Celsius) in the Mandalay Bay casino/resort complex, which may open by the end of the month, is similar to chill-out establishments in Stockholm (the Absolut Icebar) and other minus5s in Australia and New Zealand. Patrons, who pay $30 to enter the 1,200-square-foot lounge in Vegas, will be loaned parkas and gloves, sit on ice chairs and sip a drink (one included in the entry fee) in frozen glasses.

JetBlue flight diverted after fight breaks out

A JetBlue flight from Boston, Massachusetts, to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, was diverted Saturday when a fight broke out after someone was smoking in the bathroom, federal officials said. A JetBlue plane was held in North Carolina for two hours while passengers were interviewed. One passenger aboard JetBlue Flight 455 was taken into custody at Raleigh-Durham International Airport in North Carolina after the plane landed about 5:45 p.m.

A Villa for One Euro?

You read that right. In the picturesque hilltop town of Salemi in western Sicily, the mayor is selling old stone villas in the historic town center for one euro (approximately $1.41) apiece. The catch? These villas were damaged in the 1968 earthquake, and have stood unoccupied and deteriorating for the past 40 years. Sound appealing? Once you buy the villa, you must restore it in two years in a way that respects its original character and in accordance with the architectural standards established by the town council; you must also hire local builders, architects, decorators, and plumbers to do the work, reports Times Online, “since the aim of the scheme is to help the local economy.”

Popularity: 73% [?]

Eiffel Tower’s lights are to go out

Since January 1, 2000, every hour after dusk, the 20,000 bulbs twinkle brilliantly for ten minutes in what has become a tourist hit. But starting next month, Sete, the company subcontracted by Paris to run the tower, has decided to half the time the bulbs are on, cutting illumination from 400 to 200 hours per year.

American Airlines launches Aircell’s mobile broadband service Gogo

Customers traveling on American’s Boeing 767-200 aircraft can access complete coast-to-coast coverage on nonstop flights between New York and San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles, and New York and Miami. American and Aircell have joined together to bring the first full inflight broadband service to the US market.

Aircell’s Gogo will be available to customers as a fee-based service in all cabins. Each paid Gogo session includes full Internet access. Cell phone and Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) services are not available.

They’re changing hats at Buckingham Palace to save the black bear

They have perched atop the heads of straight-faced soldiers for almost 200 years, been photographed by millions of tourists and generated countless protests, but now the controversial bearskin hats worn by the Buckingham Palace Guardsmen finally seem likely to be replaced with a more modern, humane alternative.

The hats commemorate the victory over Napolean’s Imperial Guards at the battle of Waterloo and were modeled after the hats that the French guardsmen wore.

Frommer’s travel guides now available for iPod and iPhone

Digital editions of Frommer’s 2008 guides to New York, San Francisco, London and Paris are $9.99 from Apple.com via the new Apple App Store and from iTunes.

Plane with blown tire lands safely at Los Angeles airport

An American Airlines jet carrying 135 people returned safely to Los Angeles International Airport today after blowing a tire during takeoff on a flight to Toronto. The Boeing 737 touched down without incident, a flattened tire visible on the inboard side of its left main landing gear. The outboard tire on the left side appeared normal.

Woman told to repay airline for diversion (Fake Bomb Scare Brings Real $23,000 Fine)

A New York judge ordered a disgruntled airline passenger who falsely claimed to have a bomb in her bag to pay JetBlue the cost of making an emergency landing.

She was trying to get the plane that left with her luggage and without her to turn around.

Popularity: 53% [?]

A while back I wrote an article analyzing the finances of online travel agency YTB. My conclusion was that it was better to be YTB than someone who is building a travel agency based on them. It all smelled a bit. Apparently I am not the only one who reached that conclusion as they were just sued by California’s Attorney General as a Ponzi scheme.

Brown Sues To Topple Online Pyramid Scheme

California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. today announced a lawsuit against YourTravelBiz.com for operating a “gigantic pyramid scheme” that recruited tens of thousands of members with deceptive claims that members could earn huge sums of money through its online travel agencies.

Wireless culture taking to the air

Delta Air Lines announced Tuesday that it will introduce Wi-Fi access on certain aircraft by fall and expand it to its entire domestic fleet of more than 330 planes by next summer. American Airlines and Virgin America previously have said they will launch in-flight broadband Internet services on certain planes by year-end.

TSA to allow laptops to stay in approved bags

There’s a new option for people annoyed at having to take their laptops out of their bags at airport security. The Transportation Security Administration will now allow travelers to leave their computers inside “checkpoint friendly” cases.

Airline industry axes 60m seats

The global airline industry will fly 60m fewer seats in the run-up to Christmas - equivalent to a 7% cut in flights - as the oil spike and economic downturn force carriers to axe services.

Kayak and American Airlines are having a bit of a tif:

Kayak.com drops American Airlines airfares from listings

American Airlines telling you that it will no longer be displaying airfares on Kayak.com or sister site Sidestep.com.

American Airlines spokesman Tim Wagner explained the company’s tiff with Kayak. The airline asked the meta-search engine to bar American ticket purchases through online travel agencies such as Orbitz.com or Cheaptickets.com. As of today, American’s airfares were not available on Kayak.com but flight schedules were still listed.

and in the expected follow up story:

Kayak.com drops American Airlines airfares from listings

American Airlines spokesman Tim Wagner explained the company’s tiff with Kayak. The airline asked the meta-search engine to bar American ticket purchases through online travel agencies such as Orbitz.com or Cheaptickets.com. As of today, American’s airfares were not available on Kayak.com but flight schedules were still listed.

American Airline sues parent of Kayak.com and Sidestep.com

Fort Worth-based American Airlines is suing the parent of meta-search sites Kayak.com and Sidestep.com, saying the Web sites violated its agreement to use the airline’s airfare content.

At issue is whether the sites were allowed to display American fares through third-party sites, including orbtiz.com and cheaptickets.com — where the carrier must pay booking fees — rather than just on www.aa.com.

After Beheading, Greyhound Kills Ad Campaign

Yes, the company offering famously lousy service had just launched an ad campaign with the line “There’s a reason you’ve never heard of ‘bus rage’” when, on a trip from Alberta to Winnipeg, one of its passengers was apparently beheaded and eaten. Suffice to say, they’re doing away with the campaign

and in the strangest piece of news, the conspiracies around the murder that happened at the Olympics:

An American tourist is murdered, and conspiracy theories abound

What would make you stab a 62-year-old tourist to death in the middle of the day and then leap off a 150-foot tower? That’s a question you can’t help puzzling over if you’re in Beijing. What on earth was going on in the mind of Tang Yongming, the 47-year-old man who stabbed two Americans and their Chinese guide over the weekend? Todd Bachman, the father-in-law of the U.S. men’s volleyball coach, was killed in the attack.

Popularity: 59% [?]

Bag labelled ‘bomb’ got past security checks

A LARGE bag with “BOMB” written across it passed through Qantas check-in and security screening for oversized luggage at Brisbane domestic airport yesterday, the Transport Workers Union said.

Baggage handlers preparing to transfer the bag raised the alarm and stopped work for about 40 minutes as security staff and managers attempted to remove it.

With a weak dollar, America is a great buy for foreigners, yet visits are falling

A recent headline in The Guardian of London � “America � more hassle than it’s worth?” � underscores a stubborn global view that the United States is not an easy or a desirable place to visit.

Unesco Adds to Its World Heritage List

Unesco this month added 27 sites to its World Heritage list, which now has 878 sites in 145 countries. Nineteen new sites fall into the cultural category. They include the Historic Center of Camag�ey, an inland village in Cuba founded by the Spaniards in 1528; the Armenian Monastic Ensembles, three structures in northwest Iran that are dedicated to the Armenian Christian faith (the oldest dates from the seventh century); and the Wooden Churches of the Slovak part of the Carpathian Mountain area (Slovakia), which consists of eight structures built between the 16th and the 18th centuries for the Roman Catholic, the Protestant and the Greek Orthodox faiths. New natural sites include Surtsey, a volcanic island in Iceland formed between 1963 and 1967; the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in Mexico; and the Socotra Archipelago in Yemen in the northwest Indian Ocean near the Gulf of Aden.

Delta: Body of woman, 61, found in plane bathroom

Flight attendants discovered the body of a 61-year-old woman in the restroom of a plane shortly before the flight landed in Atlanta Wednesday morning, a spokeswoman for the airline said.

JetBlue CEO to take pay cut in ’show of solidarity’ with workers

JetBlue CEO Dave Barger will take a 50% pay cut for the second half of 2008, something Reuters calls “a show of solidarity with employees as the low-cost carrier struggles with soaring fuel prices and a slowing U.S. economy.”

Rape Alley

IT was once a peaceful fishing village, then an upmarket family resort � but today it is ruled by drunken young Brits.

Shameless pairs have sex in public, hooligans brawl over a wrong look, girls parade in underwear, youngsters down cheap booze until they vomit and drunken teens menace the narrow streets on quad bikes.

Welcome to Laganas on the Greek island of Zante, the latest holiday destination to fall foul of Brits abroad in the wake of now-notorious troublespots Ayia Napa and Faliraki.

Popularity: 49% [?]

Tourists’ flight to wrong country

A family who were bound for a week’s holiday in Lanzarote are back home after a check-in desk mix-up meant they caught a flight to Turkey instead.
Charles Coray, his wife Tania and their nine-year-old daughter Phoebe did not realise the mistake until they landed and a hostess said “welcome to Turkey”.
They were issued the wrong boarding passes by a ground handling worker at Cardiff airport on Sunday morning.

Flight attendant wins trip into space - on Rocketplane!

Mathilde Epron was working her daily flight schedule when she grabbed a quick Kit Kat snack, tossed the wrapper in the garbage and went on about her normal duties. Suddenly, struck with a feeling that she should have checked the wrapper, she went back to the trash two hours later, dug out the refuse lo and behold, won one of the first trips into space on fledgling space tourism company, Rocketplane.

Qantas jet lands with gaping hole in fuselage

The 346 passengers were cruising at 29,000 feet Friday when an explosive bang shook the Qantas jumbo jet. The plane descended rapidly. Oxygen masks dropped from the ceiling as debris flew through the cabin from a hole that had suddenly appeared in the floor.

It wasn’t until they were safely on the ground after an emergency landing that they realized how lucky they had been: A hole the size of a small car had been ripped into the Boeing 747-400’s metal skin and penetrated the fuselage.

Five hurt during Pamplona bull run finale

You get the basic idea. News Flash: running with bulls is not safe.

Enter the My Favorite Disney Parks Memory Contest

Just upload a video (up to one minute long) of your favorite Disney Parks memory. It can be actual footage of your Disney vacation, a re-enactment or any creative expression of your memory. And it can be a memory of any Disney Parks property: Disney Cruise Line®, Adventures by Disney, Walt Disney World® Resort, Disneyland® Resort, etc.

Iraq opens airport aimed at tourism

I think we would have to rate this one as adventure travel.

The 30 Busiest Passenger Airports in the World

The busiest airport is Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport which had 84,846,639 passengers arriving or departing according to 2006 data.

5 Ways Travelers Can Avoid Being Caught With Drugs

The only obvious suggestions that this article missed is “don’t carry drugs”.

13 Things Your Waiter Won’t Tell You

Splitting entrées is okay, but don’t ask for water, lemon, and sugar so you can make your own lemonade. What’s next, grapes so you can press your own wine?

Seriously? Do people do that?

Popularity: 56% [?]