Travel Blog

With one destructive hurricane behind us, one on the way, and who knows how many more possible, it may be time to consider some way to pay for all the rebuilding necessary. I understand that the administration does not want to raise taxes and that “Operation Offset” is a way that some in Congress are proposing to try to pay for reconstruction. Some of their ideas are to freeze funding for the Peace Corps, the Global AIDS Initiative, and U.N. peacekeeping operations. They would eliminate the EnergyStar program, grants for state and local energy conservation, federal subsidies for Amtrak, funding for new light-rail programs and the hydrogen fuel initiative. Also eliminated are grants for safe and drug-free schools, and teen contraceptive programs. They’d probably also cut funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the National Endowment for the Arts.

At least seven other landing gear incidents have been identified with the Airbus A320 planes, of which JetBlue Flight 292 was one. JetBlue owns 81 of the A320s and would be one of the biggest customers affected if changes needed to be made to the landing gear on the fleet of A320s worldwide.

Okay, well I’m currently away from my home base, this time for business reasons. Before I delve into my weekly update, I’ve made a few observations while traveling so I think I’ll share. First, people in the service industry in the D.C. area aren’t terribly polite. Now, I am both generalizing and understating here. These bammas are flat out RUDE. Me: “‘Scuse me, can you tell me where the soap is?” Them: *blank stare* Me: “Umm, do you work here?” Them: “Ugh, I’m on the phone, if you can’t find it by the sign, then you gonna haveta wait a minute. *eye roll combined with suck teeth* Jeez. The San Diego airport, in an effort to make us all feel like 90 year old grandmas, has lined its Terminal 2 with rocking chairs. ROCKING CHAIRS!!! At first, I was taken aback by these old-style wooden beauties lining the waiting areas. Then I noticed people comfortably sliding back and forth with looks of peace and tranquility plastered on their faces. Peace and tranquility in an airport? “There must be something to this,” I thought as I scootched on over to the nearest vacant chair. Rock…mmmmm…rock…ooohhh…rock…aaaaahhhh. Oh my freakin’ God, these things work! Shocking. Two minutes after being slightly perterbed by the airportness of the place, I am rocking my way to absolute nirvana. Who knew?!? One last observation. This one’s about us–excuse me, US. Maaaan, I get on the plane in Vegas (layover) and I’m sitting next to two entrepeNegros who are doing, apparently, quite well for themselves. In fact, I’m hoping to meet up with Wife entrepeNegro to discuss hear more about what they do. But why, why, WHY did they act like we were on Southwest Airlines (what I refer to as “the Greyhound of the Skies”). I have ridden Southwest, will probably ride again because it is so dang cheap, so I’m not here frontin’ like it’s beneath me or something. But that said, WTF? I mean, if you’ve ever flown SWA you know EXACTLY what I’m talking about. We get on the plane–mind you i saw these cats in the waiting area and they were sitting there at least as long as I was–we get on the plane, and they pull out their burger king and commence to grubbin’. I wish I could say that they were throwing pickles or being really obnoxious, you know for the fun of the story, but they weren’t. They were just funkin’ up the joint with their stinky food that they could have easily consumed before getting on the plane.

Well as most of you have probably seen, there was that whole Jet Blue incident today. Yes I’m a sucker for these things that’s why I’m writing about it. I found out about it when Karl IM’ed me and said “there’s an emergency landing in LAX!” I was like “who, what, where, when, how!??” Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see it happen live.. by the time I got home the plane already landed.

I think my important relationships are mostly strong, but I want to hold them gently today. And I hereby vow that when travelocity sends me those fare watcher messages that includes a city where someone I love lives, I'm going. It's not enough to think "wouldn't that be nice?".

The world seems to be a bit crazy right now with hurricane Katrina, hurricane Rita, the Jet Blue near plane crash, and tornadoes in Minneapolis. The American Red Cross estimates more than $2 billion needed for emergency needs for Katrina alone. Please keep these people in your prayers.

I’m sure you will be disheartened to know that American Airlines has discontinued their nonstop service from Chicago O’Hare to Rome.

The storm is expected to remain a Category 4 storm until it makes landfall, meteorologist Chris Landsea of the National Hurricane Center in Miami said. That’s now predicted for Saturday somewhere between northern Mexico and western Louisiana, most likely in Texas.

When a free-marketeer presents Amtrak as an example of government waste, I have to wonder what they think of the Interstate Highway System. This is also a government program and the cost has been in the trillions. Toll roads with electronic payment systems may have their place, but where would the United States be if Eisenhower had decided to wait for private enterprise to build the highway system? It is the same place we are headed because of the endless wail for privatizing everything in the past 30 years. Commercial healthcare has not brought us universal coverage. Commercial energy has lowered standards but not price. Commercial transportation needs bailout after bailout. America continues to suffer under this delusion.

Since I’m a 1K flier on United Airlines, I fly United a lot more than I do Jet Blue. I must be in the minority, because Jet Blue is thriving while much bigger and older United is trying desperately to avoid drowning. How can that be?

Meanwhile… Air France is now the world’s largest airline by revenue, and its most profitable. Since its merger with KLM, its net income has jumped to $443 million, while the industry’s nine next-largest airlines collectively lost $8 billion in the nine months ended Dec. 31, 2004.

I was really hoping that business model transformation at Delta Airlines would work. But as I had feared all along, Delta did not make it, and neither did Northwest Airlines. The example of Delta in particular shows how difficult business model transformations are when legacy issues make certain changes difficult. The traditional US airline companies are burdened with the same challenges that auto companies are. And that is why I would not be surprised to see Ford and GM continuing to be in serious financial trouble.

Even before the decision was made to open the Dome as a shelter, the mayor began organizing a team of corporate CEOs, leaders of major church congregations and government officials to create a multifaceted relief effort to provide clothing, medicines and long-term shelter for the evacuees. Continental Airlines and Second Baptist Church have pledged to provide thousands of hygiene kits. Drugstore chains, including Wal-Mart, CVS and Walgreen, are setting up free pharmacy services within Reliant Park.

We have Amtrak here that could have carried everybody out of town. There were enough school buses that could have evacuated 20,000 people easily, but they just let them be flooded. My son watched 40 buses go underwater - they just wouldn’t move them, afraid they’d be stolen.

So the next stop on my adventures is purely recreational. Adrian and I fly out for L.A. on Monday (once the laundry is done) before visiting Las Vegas and then San Diego. I've never been to the States before and, although the thought of another plane flight is depressing me right now, I am looking forward to having fun once I get there. I'll take some pics and try and get online to keep you all up to date - anyone want to come along?

Continental Airlines has agreed to donate 1,000 tickets to victims of Katrina in order to help them relocate around the country. Considering the sorry state of the airline industry these days, it’s good to see someone stepping up. Let’s hope other companies follow.