Free Slater!

When people are repeatedly placed in untenable positions, outcomes are not always positive. Blame the airlines and the TSA if passengers and flight attendants snap. The airlines and the TSA have been steadily making air travel less pleasant, to the point that, even if one looks forward to a trip, very few of us look forward to the flight any more. In fact, when traveling, the flight is the major stressor, as the most likely place that a trip can be derailed.

http://www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/2010-08-11-1Aattendants11_CV_N.htm

Where I've Been, Domestic Edition

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Where I've Been

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Man, I Knew It

From the USA Today site:

Scariest airports

Four U.S. airports made SmarterTravel's list of the world's scariest airports for takeoff and landing:

[ ... ]

Also making the list: Gibraltar Airport in Gibraltar; Toncontin International Airport in Tegucigalpa, Honduras; Paro Airport in Paro, Bhutan; Barra Airport in Barra, Scotland; La Aurora International in Guatemala City; and Wellington International in Wellington, New Zealand.

La Aurora requires an unusual maneuver in which a landing plane banks steeply and then thuds down. The jet I arrived in from Ft. Lauderdale did this, and a few days after my arrival, I was walking north of the airport and saw a Cessna perform the same maneuver. I think La Aurora is scariest, though, due to the lack of facilities in the international terminal. Probably the least pleasant airport I've ever had to fly from. And as I'm wont to say, Vasco da Gama never had to put up with airlines and airports when he traveled the world.

Mein Gott! Frankfurt has Cots!

Seeing these pictures of cots in the Frankfurt airport made me a bit jealous. Cots in an airport? Someone should suggest this to JFK, where many of us were stranded 3/13 - 3/15 last month. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1266406/Iceland-volcano-Fallout-ash-cloud-felt-world.html

I'll never again say bad things about Frankfurt Airport.

Airline Passenger Bill of Rights

Another group of passengers got stranded on the ground in a plane for 6 hours, were forced to pay for food and water while stranded, and still the plane was out of food and water by the time the passengers were allowed to depart. Being out of water can be dangerous for people with certain medical conditions. While not as extreme as the flight that was kept prisoner on a plane over night, this points out the need for a passengers' bill of rights. Between the airlines' lack of respect for their customers and the government's security theatre, flying has become very unpleasant in this country.

Amtrak works well, though.