Airbus 2050–Wonder Woman’s Plane

Airbus has some future tech porn in the Guardian, showing us what flying in 2050 will be like. Yes, the picture on the right is one of those shots.  In a few words: glass membranes and virtual golf.  Yep, looking out a few years, that’s all they got. 

While I can look at the picture and parts of me oohs and ahs, the reality factor steps in.  You are flying east in the morning after a night of hard partying in Vegas.  Do you really want the sun in your eyes?  Night flying might be really cool, but remember, lights inside the cabin would reflect inside the cabin, causing any stargazing to be rendered practically useless.  

Major point – this is a view from First Class.  By 2050, those in coach will be strapped to boards, standing upright.  Of course, no glossy artwork of that.  Airbus may talk about a world where there are no classes, just zones of fun and vitamin enriched air, but airlines fly the planes. That is why the virtual golf thing, will never see the light of day.  Virtual golf takes up valuable real estate in a plane.  You know, space where a paying passenger would sit.  And while Airbus talks about

"The concept cabin is designed with that in mind, and shows that the journey can be as much a voyage of discovery as the destination."

the point is the only thing that people are going to discover is that they have overpaid for their four hour ride, because the person next to them used Priceline.  And there still will not be enough overhead bin space.  After all, you can’t see the sky in Wonder Woman’s plane if there’s a suitcase above your head. 

While all of this is nice and everything, I would take a flight with no crying babies, a passenger list of people who have flown more than once in the last twenty years, a hot TSA agent who actually means it when they feel me up and an occasional complimentary beer. 

I know.  That’s the stuff of science fiction. 

On Through The Night

I travel.  A lot.  I’m that level just below road warrior. Call it road kill.  Life has changed since the golden days of flying, when everyone dressed to the nines, real food was served on airline china and flight attendants were called stewardesses.  Yeah, those days are gone.  Flying has become a commodity for all the right and wrong reasons.  Today we are shuffled like cattle, squeezed into seats made for munchkins and made to deal with our fellow man on a forced basis.   Anyway, I just finished up a one-connect red-eye from hell.  And so, since I’m feeling somewhat cranky as a result, I wish to remind some of my fellow travelers about a couple of those little rules about traveling in the 21st century.  I do this especially since the travel “silly season” is upon us, where everyone out there who does not have a clue, purchases an overpriced seat to go to that overpriced dream place for a too short a period of time.

First, you know those rules the TSA has about liquids?  Yeah, they are an idiotic pain in the butt, and that’s putting it mildly.  But do us all a favor.  Tell it to your congressman.  Tell it to the President. Tell it to someone who can actually change things.  Do not tell the TSA agent. They do not care that the twenty-four ounce bottle of shampoo you have to carry on retails for seventy-five dollars and contains the placentas of genetically engineered blue-eyed fruit bats.  And neither do the rest of us waiting in line.  The rules, no matter how Kafkaesque they may seem are not going to change just because you think they magically do not apply to you.  Become an activist  - on your own time.

Next up, I know that the airlines are scumbags for charging for checked bags.  But really, do you have to pack up the plantation like the Beverly Hillbillies and try to stuff it into three oversized bags and then try to  pretend they are two carry-ons?  You are traveling on an airplane, not escaping the Bolsheviks.  Learn to pack lightly.  Here’s a useful tip.  Take everything you want to take for your trip and the night before you leave, cut that pile in half.  It actually works.

When you are on vacation, you buy stuff.  Do yourself a huge favor – See if the place you bought your stuff from will ship to your home.   Less things to try to keep track of.  And less things you have to pack on the way home.

The flight attendants are there to prevent me from strangling your progeny and stuffing their lifeless body into the overhead bins.  You can help too.  I do not care that your precious is an honor student; all I care about is that your precious keeps kicking the back of my seat.  Be aware that this is a tiny place we are stuck in for the next two to five hours.  I do not want to kill anyone.  So stop making it so tempting to do so.

And yes, sometimes a flight attendant can be a real b*tch.  They have to be when they put up with people like you.   There is a saying: “How best to act a King, when always treated like a King”.  The service industry has a habit of treating even the most petty tyrant with respect.  Try to do the same for the flight attendant.

The point to this is simple; we are fellow travelers in a confined space for a short period of time.  Travel is not about you; it is about the journey itself.  Be aware there are other people around you and act accordingly.  Smile to each other.  The food isn’t great, if there is any, the coffee lukewarm and the conversation minimal at times.  That is the way of the road.  Be a warrior, but be a gentle one.

Can’t Drive 55? Blame TomTom

People love to drive fast.  The police love writing speeding tickets to people who do.  Fact of life in the driving age.  So upon hearing this morning’s story I had to chuckle.  You see, the fine folks who make the GPS units known as TomTom have been selling their data to the Dutch police.  The Dutch police have been using the data, primarily the speed of driving data, to set up speed traps throughout Holland.  When people found out about this, they were not amused.  And TomTom publicly apologized for the sale. 

Now before we go any further, according to TomTom, the information is totally anonymous.  The speed data is used  by TomTom to help people avoid bottlenecks, accidents and school zones. And in a world of fastly shifting revenue streams, as more smartphones offer GPS navigation service, TomTom has been forced to compensate for declining profit by increasing sales in other areas, including the selling of traffic data to government sources.

The traffic data helps police and government planners know where the usual bottlenecks and safety problems are so they can plan accordingly.  But the side effect is that data also lets you see the areas where people speed.  The police are unable to see just who was speeding, only that there is speeding occurring in certain places on a consistent basis.  When you know that, you know where to set up your speed trap.

The main concern here is about privacy.  Even though TomTom has said the data is completely anonymous, in the world of data, it rarely is.  It’s not hard to fathom a scenario in which data supplied by TomTom could be used to figure out sensitive information about its users, such as where they live and work.  All it takes is someone dedicated enough to do so.  That is why people are upset. 

Of course, drivers in the US have had the site speedtrap.org to let them know where the usual speed traps are.  The site has been up for years and provides you with exactly where the police regularly set up their speed traps.   No GPS unit required for that one.  Just good, old fashioned information sharing on the message boards.  The thing the internet was originally set up to facilitate. 

Daddy, What’s A Travel Agent?

There is a Battle Royale brewing  between airlines and internet booking sites.  Just before Christmas, American Airlines pulled all of its fares from Orbitz.  At some point over the past week, American’s fares have quietly disappeared from Expedia.  Today,  Delta announced its flights will no longer be listed on CheapOAir, OneTravel, and BookIt.  Granted, Delta’s announcement is not on the scale as American, but it is pointing to a larger trend.

This isn’t the first time airlines have not played nice with internet sites.  Back in September 2008, American airlines went after Kayak.com, and yanked their fares from the "meta" airfare search site for a while, before going back. The reason at the time was because American didn’t want Kayak to offer consumers the opportunity to book AA’s fares on third-party sites such as Travelocity or Orbitz. Rather, they wanted all AA fares to link directly and only to American’s web site.

It all boils down to money.  Third party sites like Orbitz receive a commission whenever they sell an airline ticket.  But it goes deeper than that.  By going to American’s website, a customer has a chance to purchase ancillary items such as travel insurance, credit cards, and vacations.  When you do that, the additional money goes directly to American.  If you purchase the same thing through Orbitz, American will not see that additional money.

Now, to be fair, Southwest has never joined the internet engine bandwagon: the only way to purchase a Southwest flight is to go to their website (as their commercials incessantly point out).  Allegiant Air follows the same path and both airlines are financially healthy.  So the point of foregoing the airline aggregators does have some merit.

But the point of aggregators was to make life easier for consumers.  Bottom line, if the trend continues to other airlines and aggregators, this will make airfare shopping harder for consumers, just like in the good old days when you called up each airline in turn to find the lowest fare.  You could always use a travel agent.  No, wait, those people are long gone, the first casualties of the internet.  Why did they go away?  Because they charged a commission. 

It seems like everything old is new again.

What ‘Cha Gonna Do With All That Junk?

For the last twenty four hours or so, the internet has been awash in some fairly rabid anti-TSA sentiment. This has to do with John Tyner, a gentleman in San Diego who did not want to go through the backscatter machine. His alternative was to receive an “enhanced pat-down” search. That would have involved the screener touching Tyner’s genitals. This would never had been a blip on the radar, but Tyner refused to go any further with the procedures, captured the conversation with the TSA with his cell phone camera, posted it on the web and well, suddenly the question about scanners, pat-downs and the TSA is like a missing white female on the Nancy Grace show.

The full-body scans were implemented after an attempted bombing by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the so-called underwear bomber, after he tried to hide explosives in his underwear. Obviously the material passed through the metal detectors handily. There are currently 385 scanning units in use at 68 airports. And they work, no doubt about that. Except, of course if there are explosives inside a bodily cavity, like a mouth or anus. But aside from that, there are plenty of questions concerning health and privacy.

First, about the health. No matter what you may call the process, we are talking about radiation. You know, like when you go to the dentist and the assistant goes to take an X-Ray of your mouth. Ever wonder why they put a lead shield on your chest and the assistant goes outside the room to take the picture of your teeth? It’s because continuous exposure is not good for you. Several researchers at the University of California at San Francisco have warned of the radiation risks concerning the backscatter machines. The airline’s pilot union had also expressed concerns, given that pilots would be subjected to excessive radiation. The Electronic Privacy Information Center filed a separate FOIA request last summer to obtain reports and other information the TSA used to determine the health effects of the devices before deploying them in airports. The civil liberties group announced on Tuesday that it was suing the agency to comply with the request. Consumer rights advocate Ralph Nader told reporters on a call on Tuesday that the technology has not been subjected to proper analysis to determine the health risks.

As for the privacy issue, the TSA has taken pains to tell the public that any images are not saved. There is one slight problem to that statement, however. While the images are not supposed to be saved, they can be. And because they can be saved, they will. Especially of those young women who should work for Hooters. Case in point: Gizmodo published 100 of the photographs saved by the Gen 2 millimeter wave scanner from Brijot Imaging Systems, Inc., obtained by a FOIA request after it was recently revealed that U.S. Marshals operating the machine in the Orlando, Florida courthouse had improperly – perhaps illegally – saved images of the scans of public servants and private citizens. Now if this should fall on the side of sheer stupidity or perverse delight, I would not rule out the former. After all, most of the see-through pictures are of your typical, overweight Florida lawyer. And I don’t know if there is that huge a market out there for Lawyer porn. I could be wrong, of course.

Which leave us with the issue of “enhanced pat downs”. Over the last few years, I have developed a rather jaundiced eye over anything the government claims is “enhanced”. And I side whole-heartedly with any parent out there forced to watch their child being groped in the name of national security. My question is what was wrong with the old “back of the hand” procedure? I’ve been patted down like that with no problems. Is using the palm of the hand that more effective? If so, where are the studies to back it up?

But even with all the internet rage, A USA Today/Gallup poll released last week said that 78 percent of air travelers approve of full-body scanners in airports and 84 percent believe the scanners would prevent explosives from being carried on a plane. Some 98 percent of passengers say they would rather have a full-body scan than a pat-down search. So I would not expect to see the scanners going away any time soon.

As for the pat-downs? The TSA has said there will be no change to the policy. Yet. I’m waiting for someone to start faking an orgasm loudly, like Meg Ryan in the lunch scene from “When Harry Met Sally“. Now that would be worth throwing on YouTube.

And chances are, that would change the procedure in record time.

Now Playing: Black Eyed Peas – Monkey Business – My Humps

SFO Joins the Free Wi-Fi Movement

One problem with traveling is that while airports offer Wi-Fi, who really wants to connect? In some cases, (I’m looking at you, O’Hare), it can take up to twenty minutes to connect to the outside world.  You have to set up an account first and then pay for it and then by the time you finally get connected, it’s time to board the aircraft.  If you’re between flights it only makes sense if your layover is two hours or more. 

But there are a handful of airports that offer free Wi-Fi, and starting September 1, San Francisco Airport joins them.  San Jose was the first Bay Area airport to offer free Wi-Fi two years ago and Oakland quickly followed.

Usually, free Wi-Fi is found at smaller regional airports while the main hubs force you into paying.  But that is slowly changing, as business travelers are making their voices heard through passenger surveys. 

"If you are going to charge for it, nobody is going to use it," said Michael Boyd, president of The Boyd Group, a consulting firm to the aviation industry. "I’m not there long enough to pay for it."

WordPress Tags: Free Wi-Fi, Travel

Now Playing: David Bowie – Lodger – Fantastic Voyage

Just Trying To Help Out

Delta Airlines, here’s a message for you.  Your voice recognition system sucks.  Big time.  I’ve tried everything and the only way your system seems to work is if I sound like Lillith from Frasier.  Yes I look strange in a crowd talking like that on the phone, so honestly, can you do something about it?  I mean how can your system not understand the spoken letter “A” from the letter “T”  They’re not even in the same phonetic camp.   I’m tired of telling your system the same thing over and over only to have your system give me that bright and cheery phrase “I’m sorry, I did not understand that, please try again…”

Is it really worth the hassle you put your customers through?  Is it?

WordPress Tags: Travel, Delta, Voice Recognition, @$^#%@!

Now Playing: Reba McEntire – It’s Your Call – It’s Your Call