Cranky on the Web (September 11 – 16)

Safety/Security, Southwest

Southwest to transform AirTran hub into ‘megacity’Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I was asked what might happen when Southwest takes over the Atlanta operation for AirTran. Small cities might be most at risk.

Keep your shoes on at the airport? MaybeCNN Out of the Office
There’s talk of you being able to keep your shoes on through security. I’m not getting my hopes up.

Getting your money’s worth in business classBBC Passport Blog
I was asked about which airlines and flights to take to get that flat bed in business class.

In the Trenches: Missing Something GoodIntuit Small Business Blog
I get a lot of unsolicited emails, and that makes it tougher to find those that matter.

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4 comments on “Cranky on the Web (September 11 – 16)

  1. “””””Typical business class airfares may seem shockingly expensive to travellers used to hitting the skies on cheap economy fares.
    But when companies want highly skilled and compensated employees travelling across oceans or continents to arrive well rested and ready to work, they don’t mind paying those stifling $5,000 to $10,000 round trip fares.”””””

    If company’s were smart they would send their employees out a day ahead of time and just pay for another hotel night which is a lot cheaper and have the worker fly coach. With internet access, video conferencing, smart phones, the worker could sit in a hotel room ahead of their meeting and still be in touch with the office and still do a days work. The public company is just wasting their share holders investment buy putting employee’s in first/business class.

  2. The whole shoe thing at airports is a joke. I’ve been at one airport in the morning where they make everyone take off your shoes and then at the connecting airport they don’t. So it’s either one airport likes to play the ‘power trip’ game and make everyone remove their shoes or they don’t want to take the chance of letting something slip by and get in trouble. But I think it’s the power trip game more myself.

    1. So I agree with you on the security theatre bit, but if the shoe checking is not consistent it’ll limit the ability for a shoe bomber to get on. Its not as if they could try to walk on with a shoe bomb one day and hope they’re not checking that day..

      What I think is far more of a problem with security is that folks can print their own boarding pass, which the TSA then checks against the ID. This makes all the identity checking that they’re doing useless. To get around this you simply buy a ticket in someone else’s name (stolen credit card, etc) then present a printed boarding pass edited with your own name. The TSA actually prevents this with mobile boarding passes by scanning the barcode on the pass. (Given how flaky the scanner was, I’m not going to deal with the mobile boarding pass again.)

  3. The lie flat bed is important for side sleepers.

    However, for back sleepers, it is just as easy to get to sleep with an angled bed with a little kink in it to stop the slide, I find.

    If I can find an airline with good food, an angled bed and relatively cheap (like OS on its 777s asian overnight runs) it is a bargain.

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