This week’s featured link:
Fliers’ right to video gets push from recent airline incidents – Atlanta Journal-Constitution
There’s a very interesting case brewing around the idea of whether or not people have the right to record video on airplanes. On the one hand, it’s private property and the airline (specifically the captain) should have the right to prevent filming onboard. But it also feels very heavy-handed and if something bad is happening, people are still going to do it.
Most airlines have straddled a line saying that filming is fine, but you can’t film specific people onboard without getting their permission. That, of course, effectively defeats the purpose of someone trying to film a incident while it’s happening.
There’s no question that filming is a double-edged sword. There are people who will stoke the fire, start filming, and then make edits to try to make people look bad unfairly. But there is also a public service being done when people are trying to help write wrongs by making the incidents public.
Two for the road:
New Orleans-based GLO Airlines to suspend service, but company has ‘good game plan’ to take off again – The New Orleans Advocate
It looks like GLO’s days down in the Bayou are numbered, at least temporarily. The company had filed for bankruptcy, but now its flight provider is pulling out. It says it has a plan to get back in the sky, but in the meantime, flights stop this weekend.
Israel Seeking Saudi Flight Deal to Bring Pilgrims to Mecca – Bloomberg
There’s something about travel and diplomacy that go hand in hand. With allegiances shifting in the Middle East as Israel and Saudi Arabia get closer thanks to a common enemy (Iran), opening up pilgrimage flights could be a real sign of progress in normalizing relations. Baby steps.
5 comments on “3 Links I Love: Banning Filming On Airplanes, GLO Shuts Down, Israel and Saudi Arabia Warm Up”
Common sense should prevail when taking videos on airplanes or at airports. People shouldn’t be in someone’s face taking their picture without their consent. But if something is obviously going on people will start taking a video which can be a good thing to show/prove what happen.
Airlines don’t want you taking videos because they don’t want the public to see how bad their employees maybe treating people or just how bad they are acting.
They don’t want videos going public of mothers holding their babies crying, people being dragged off an airplane or just overall surly behavior.
Before videos the blame was always put on the passenger because the airline crew was held in high esteem in the public’s eye, so it was always assumed the bad guy was the traveler. Now we know in the past it probably was the airline employee and not the passenger who was to blame in some cases.
Saudi Arabia has also been known to use the number of annual pilgrim visas issued by country as a diplomatic lever. It’ll be interesting to see if there’s any change in the number of ad hoc Jordanian authorizations given.
Don’t forget to mention the CEO of Qatar airlines and his outrageous remark. How about his offering every woman in the US two free business class tickets and he be the server on every trip? OK? Thank you.
Shame about GLO. I live in New Orleans, and I’d looked forward to being able to fly to Shreveport and Memphis directly. I was at MSY last September, flying SWA to Atlanta, and GLO’s single gate was in the same terminal. They were flying Saab 340’s I believe, but I suspect filling even those day after day would’ve been a challenge.
I’m glad I got to fly them once, but I had a feeling this was coming. It’s a real shame, I really loved what they were trying to do, but it always seemed unlikely to be able to fill those planes on those routes. :(