Tag: airlines

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Longest flights ranked by who sits next to you

Hipster man seat mate on longest flights

 

Airlines, for reasons most people find incomprehensible, like to boast of record-setting non-stop flights, ranked by hours in the air. The longest flights are currently claimed to be around 17 hours, although as every passenger knows, the real duration of a flight is determined by who sits next to you. The very longest flights include those on which your seatmate is:

Positive you said you would shut the oven off.

Struggling with issues of bladder control.

Louder than an accompanying child.

Returning from a wedding, with photos.

Demonstrably capable of reciting pi to 3,764 places.

Attempting to assemble an unidentifiable electronic device.

Recently retired, from sumo wrestling.

Watching an X-rated movie, you’ve already seen.

Shackled, but not gagged.

Dead.

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Three unprovoked attacks in same day by fee-hungry airlines reported

Shark-toothed airliner

In what is becoming one of the most active seasons in recent memory for attacks by fee-hungry airlines, three separate carriers ripped into unsuspecting passengers on Monday, in each case resulting in the loss of an arm and a leg.

“High levels of chumming with seemingly cheap bait-and-switch fares are responsible for much of the activity,” said Bob Payne, Director of the University of North Carolina Biology Department’s Institute for the Study of Ancillary Airline Fees.

Among the new fare add-ons are a $7 entertainment tax for listening to the safety announcement, a $34 surcharge for teens wishing to sit in a different row than their parents, and $50 change fee for deciding you want coffee after all.

“There’s no sense in blaming the airlines for the attacks,” Payne said. “They are simply mindless beasts responding to naturally-occurring conditions.”

Still, passengers can take steps to protect themselves, Payne said. For instance, he suggests carrying a roll of duct tape, so that if you do lose an arm and a leg you can reattach them, thus avoiding the increasingly common fee for personal carryon items.

When not lecturing on ancillary airline fees, humor writer Bob Payne is the  Sex,  Religion and Politics Editor for BobCarriesOn.com

 

Big Stock Photo

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Airlines face sombrero crisis

man-wearing-sombrero

 

A recent study confirms what the airlines and the flying public has long suspected.  More than 70 percent of sombreros brought aboard aircraft are left behind by people pretending to forget them.

“The explanation is simple,” says Bob Payne, spokesman for the National Association of Airlines Against the Abusive Use of Overhead Bin Space.  “Owning a souvenir sombrero, especially if its purchase in some way involved margaritas, always seems like a much better idea when you are actually in Mexico than it does on the flight home.”

The result, says Payne, is not only that aircraft cleaning crews are having to spend considerable time removing the hats but the storage problem created for airline lost and found departments is reaching crisis proportions.

“They haven’t seen anything like it since 2008 when they were inundated with Obama bobble head dolls,” Payne said.

One possible solution to the sombrero crisis, Payne said, would be to have TSA agents wear the cast-off headgear, thus making airport security screening a more welcoming, festive experience, especially if it were possible to get drug-sniffing dogs involved in wearing the hats, too.

Another solution, more popular with the airlines, would be to charge a fee of $25 for the first sombrero brought onboard, and $350 for the second.  “The beauty of the latter plan,” Payne said, “Is that it would sober up most of the offending passengers long before they got to their seats.”

Bob Payne is the editor in chief and occasionally fact checker for BobCarriesOn.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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If the TSA could only perform, like they do in Tahiti

Welcome at Tahiti airport

After arriving in Tahiti recently for my fifteenth or so visit, (he said, trying to keep as modest a tone as possible) I was reminded once again that traveling doesn’t necessarily have to be the cruel and not so unusual punishment we have come to expect.

I was flying Air Tahiti Nui, and even in economy, with enough leg-room and enough in-seat movies so that I didn’t have to resort to watching the Gangster Squad in French, it was – in relative terms – a pleasant enough flight.

What was most pleasing about getting there, though, was that meeting us as we entered Tahiti’s terminal, just as there had been for every one of my other flights, was a woman presenting each arrival with a flower, and a couple of local guys, dressed in brightly colored traditional outfits, serenading us with guitar and ukulele.

How much nicer travel would be, I thought, if someone, perhaps TSA agents needing a little overtime, would meet us in a similar manner when we arrived at LAX, or JFK, or Miami.

How hard would it be to arrange? After all, if they used TSA agents, security clearance for the performers wouldn’t be an issue. And with the lack of common sense so many of the agents exhibit, you just have to believe that many of them are already musicians.

And this would be America going to work. So you’d think they’d be able to put together an even more extravagant, and memorable, performance than some little place like Tahiti, who has nothing more to draw from financially than the ever-dwindling resources of France.

Can’t you see it? A Latin beat as you enter Miami. Jazz welcoming you to New Orleans. A cacophony of car horns for New York.

My only fear? That the TSA-staffed program would have women handing out flowers, too – as they barked: “Married. Behind your left ear. Single. Behind your right ear. Looking forward to a cavity search. Behind both.” — Bob Payne

Long-time editor-in-chief of the travel humor site BobCarriesOn.com, Bob Payne was recently appointed as a consultant to the TSA’s performing arts program.

hugontour.wordpress.com photo

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Frontier Airline’s real intention? Getting passengers to fly the plane themselves

Boys in cockpit of airliner

This announcement that Frontier Airlines will begin charging for soft drinks?

It’s just a ruse, to get people talking — mostly about why Frontier is charging $1.99 for the can and not $2.00 — in order to disguise the airline’s real goal, which is to get passengers to fly the planes themselves.

Operating on the understandable premise that they’d like to make all the money without having to do any of the work, the Denver-based airline has announced, along with the news about soft drinks, that beginning July 1st it will charge a carry-on fee of up to $100 to anyone who does not purchase their ticket through the Frontier website, thus putting pressure on them to abandon third-party sites such as expedia.com.

“With this change, we are ensuring that our most valuable customers, those who know that when it comes to air travel we’ve pretty much got them over a barrel, will once again fork out for a fee not even we first thought they’d go along with,” said Frontier spokesperson Bob Payne.

But the concern among industry watchers is that the fee, designed to see just how much of the work of running an airline the passengers are willing to do themselves, is the first of a series of steps that will lead directly to the cockpit.

“After all, flying is not like driving, where somebody actually has to be behind the wheel,” said airline-passenger advocate Bob Payne (no relation).

Commercial aircraft have been flying themselves for a long time, Payne said, with the cabin crew now there just in case the flight attendants have to reference an authority figure.

“If the airlines can buy enough lobbyists, you’ll see pilots being eliminated altogether,” said Payne. “And it’s only a step from there to charging passengers to sit in the cockpit, and only another step beyond that to charging them if they chose not to wear a captain’s hat.”

Informally polled about the announced actions, the biggest concern most Frontier passengers seemed to have was about that extra penny. “How often do you think they are going to tell us they don’t have change for the $2.00?” questioned one passenger, Bob Payne (no relation).

 When not serving as the airline correspondent for BobCarriesOn.com, Bob Payne is a non-attorney spokesperson for the soft-drink industry.

 

 

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First class passengers surprised to learn people are unhappy with flying

A new study published this week by The Entitled Flyer magazine finds that first class passengers are largely unaware that people in coach class are unhappy with flying, and are only dimly aware that people in coach class exist at all.

The study showed that when asked how many seats a Boeing 757 had most first-class respondents answered 12, and when asked to describe the difference between coach class and premium coach class 87 percent said they could not because they were unfamiliar with either term. Nor could they tell a coach class passenger from an airline’s ground crew, except that they thought one group, they weren’t sure which, might wear uniforms.

“I always assumed those people passing through the cabin were there to service the aircraft,” said frequent first class passenger Bob Payne, CEO of a company that manufactures a line of maid, butler, and driver attire for Halloween wear.

Payne said he had heard rumblings about add-on fees for baggage, boarding priority, seat selection, and even meals, but had experienced none of them personally, and knew no one who had.

“Besides, if add-on fees were really a problem you could solve it simply by presenting your Executive Elite Status Card, or demanding to be booked on a different airline,” Payne said.

In other airline news, American Airlines has announced it is ready to move to the next step in its labor negotiations by offering pilot’s uniforms for rent to passengers, who will then be allowed to sit in the cockpit.

Travel humor writer Bob Payne occasionally flies first class, but only when his private jet is being serviced.

Richard Moross/Wikipedia photo

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