3 Links I Love: Capturing Flight Attendants, Hidden City Peril, Norwegian Sneakiness

Apr 24, 2020

More Reading on This Topic: Links I Love

This week’s featured link

A flight attendant is taking surreal photographs that show what flights look like in the middle of the pandemic – Insider
These are some spectacularly-haunting photos of flight attendants working the line right now.

Video of the Week: What should you do when there’s almost no air traffic flying? Fly your private plane into the busiest airports in the world, of course. This guy visited Newark, JFK, and LaGuardia all in a row, and it’s fun to watch. Others are doing the same if you search. (via Wandering Aramean)

Two for the road

Banned for hidden-city ticketing — reader mistake story – TPG
People always ask whether anyone has really been busted for hidden-city ticketing. Yep, yep they have. I can’t believe the chutzpah with this guy breaking the rules at least 95 times and then saying the airlines is losing a loyal customer. Don’t be this guy.

Norwegian’s pilot and cabin crew companies in Sweden and Denmark file for bankruptcy – Norwegian Press Release
Exhibit A on why Norwegian has opted for a ridiculously-complex structure. It can avoid all labor protections and just walk away. This kind of stuff should be regulated out of existence.

Brett

11 responses to “3 Links I Love: Capturing Flight Attendants, Hidden City Peril, Norwegian Sneakiness”

Kilroy

Apr 24, 2020 at 5:45 am

The video on the guy doing consecutive very low approaches at EWR, LGA, and JFK on a homebuilt aircraft was very cool. What a great way to take advantage of the reduced air traffic for a once-in-a-lifetime experience. ATC’s laughter upon hearing his request was great, too, and I’m sure that the controllers are sharing stories about this and similar traffic.

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1. SEAN
  
  Apr 24, 2020 at 6:51 am
  
  Wow – just wow.
  
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2. CLTflyer
  
  Apr 24, 2020 at 9:02 am
  
  Here is someone who did the same at CLT last week – a day and night touch and go, with some awesome aerial shots: https://www.facebook.com/100000497017602/videos/pcb.10158199621844133/3624923850867480
  
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Jeremy

Apr 24, 2020 at 7:51 am

He does not land, or do a touch and go. I am sure there are reasons, but can someone enlighten me?

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1. Kilroy
  
  Apr 24, 2020 at 8:19 am
  
  If the pilot landed he would probably have to pay landing fees. Also, he’s not really trying to fly to each airport for the reason of travel, just looking to shoot the approach, so no need to waste the time and fuel landing and taxiing.
  
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Oliver

Apr 24, 2020 at 9:43 am

Reader mistake? They should call it what it is, Reader Scam.

Coming next week in TPG’s Reader Mistakes series “: AA shuts down reader’s account for sending in photoshopped car rental receipts for retrocredits”.

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Itami

Apr 24, 2020 at 11:06 am

I have to admit, this whole situation has left me rather impressed with the sophistication of Norwegian’s regulatory arbitrage. It seemed nonsensical when times were good but now it’s showing what it was there for I suppose. They really must have shelled out for the best lawyers they could find.

I feel bad for these workers in Sweden and Denmark. European bankruptcy law has historically been less focused on restructuring options, so there’s a good chance there won’t be any comebacks for the people affected. Going out of this crisis, assuming Norwegian is still around, I wonder if the EU and Norway will try to clamp down on these kinds of arrangements going forward.

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Evil Bob Crandall

Apr 24, 2020 at 12:54 pm

Airline’s pricing schemas invite this. They make it so complex to understand sometimes. I agree that what Daniel did was wrong. But AA makes it sound like they are giving him an option to crawl back. Crawl back to what? Domestic First Class with reduced leg room, young FA’s who don’t understand that good customer service starts with a hello when you board, maintenance issues and their insistence on flying the cramped 737MAX. AA’s product, compared to Delta’s is not even close. AA doesn’t get it and hasn’t gotten it in a long time. When they acquired TWA they should have used TWA’s FA training manual. Instead, they used a derivative of PeoplesExpress.

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David SF eastbay

Apr 24, 2020 at 3:43 pm

I didn’t know The Points Guy was a big deal. I’ve seen some of his youtube videos and thought that’s all he did. He’s kind of annoying if I remember correctly.

I had read once that airline computers were catching people like this guy and bill their credit card for the difference in fare. They should just do that and people would learn not to do that.

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1. dstblj
  
  Apr 24, 2020 at 6:05 pm
  
  Until it becomes a pattern its hard to prove the difference for an algorithm between misconnected and hidden city ticketing, but once its a pattern I suspect that’s going to be the solution, especially if the big three alliances start maintaining lists of banned travellers due to hidden city ticketing.
  
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TWA Fan

Apr 24, 2020 at 6:29 pm

With AA ignoring social distancing on their flights a person would have to have a death wish to fly them.

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