Breaking: United grounds all Boeing 757 aircraft

If you were scheduled on a United 757 earlier today and are wondering why it was canceled, we now know why. According to the Wall St. Journal, the airline is in the process of grounding its entire fleet in order to perform maintenance checks to air data computers that were modified earlier this year.

According to Gadling’s resident pilot Kent Wien:

There are two air data computers on every 757 and they’re used to take inputs from pitot tubes, static ports and temperature probes to determine the speed, rate of climb and altitude of the airplane. Any difference in the captain and the co-pilot’s side requires a quick determination as to which side is giving the correct data. In 1996 a 757 experienced a blocked pitot tube that caused it to crash off the coast of the Dominican Republic. While not the same problem as an ADC failure, the failures would look very similar to the pilots.

In this specific case, checks have acturally already been completed on the 96 767s; this round of study is in order to comply with Federal Aviation Administration requirements that were not followed at that time. Continental‘s 62 aircraft are not affected.

Each check takes less than two hours so the groundings should be brief. But operation on the aircraft will be disrupted for the rest of today and into tomorrow’s schedules.

Contacted for comment, United Airlines’ Charles Hobart confirmed:

We have about 25 cancellations. The maintenance checks are ongoing and will continue until completed. We expect minimal further disruption tomorrow.

Galley Gossip: Flight attendants trained to spot human traffickers at the Super Bowl

What do hundreds of flight attendants, thousands of under-age prostitutes and the Super Bowl all have in common? Dallas. On Sunday they’re all traveling to Texas. American Airlines, American Eagle, Delta, United, and Qantas hope to help stop human traffickers from pimping out women and children by holding training sessions that will enable flight attendants volunteering their time on the ground to help spot signs of trafficking. According to Texas Attorney General Greg Abbot in an article posted by Reuters, the Super Bowl is one of the biggest human trafficking events in the United States. During the previous two Super Bowls fifty girls were rescued. This year with authorities, child welfare advocates, and the airline industry all collaborating to fight under-age sex crimes, even more lives could be saved.

How did the airlines even come to be involved in human trafficking? It all started with Sandra Fiorini, an American Airlines flight attendant based in Chicago. Because of Fiorini flight attendants now know what to look for and who to call if they see something suspicious on board a flight. This after Fiorini tried to report a situation and no one responded. It involved an eighteen year-old boy on a six-hour flight carrying a newborn infant with its umbilical cord still attached. No wife. Just one bottle of milk and two diapers stuck inside his pocket. In 2007 Fiorini met Deborah Sigmund, founder of the organization Innocents at Risk, and soon they began working together with airline employees to become the first line of defense against human trafficking.




Flight attendants aren’t the only ones who can help. There are more frequent fliers now than ever before. Passengers should also be aware of what to look for while traveling.

Warning Signs

1. Someone who doesn’t have control over his/her own identification

2. Someone who has few to no possessions.

3. Someone who is not allowed to speak for themselves, or is made to speak through a translator

4. Someone who isn’t sure of where he or she lives or is or has no sense of time

5. Someone who avoids eye contact or appears fearful, anxious, tense, depressed, nervous, submissive.

6. Someone who rarely is allowed to come and go independently and may be accompanied by someone who controls their every movement

7. Someone who may be dressed inappropriately regardless of weather conditions.

Number to call

Human Trafficking Hot line 1-888-373-7888.

(Don’t wait until it’s too late. Put that number in your cell phone now!)

There are more slaves today than any other time in human history. A person can be sold several times a day for many years, opposed to drugs that can only be sold once. Because of this human trafficking is one of the fastest growing crimes in the world, only second behind drug trafficking. It generates 32 billion annually for organized crime. Each year two million women and children become victims. 300,000 children within the United States are being trafficked each year. Most are forced into a life of prostitution and pornography in large urban areas such as Washington DC, New York, Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Florida. If it can happen on my flight, it can happen on yours. Open your eyes. Get involved. Write that number down!

Photo courtesy of The Consumerist

United Airlines launches Three Perfect Days contest — win a free vacation!

Good with a video camera and a Final Cut Pro? United Airlines might have the perfect opportunity for you to win your dream vacation.

Yesterday they launched a new promotion on Facebook soliciting video entries for their “Three Perfect Days” contest. All that you have to do to enter is make a short video explaining what you would do with three perfect days of vacation and post it to their site. The submission that gets the most “likes” wins two free round trip tickets, a digital camera and a $2,500 Visa debit card (you could use it to pay off the taxes!) at its complete disposal. You’ve got until March 1st to come up with the most “likeable” video on the web.

Having sumbitted a few entries and reviewed a few more ourselves at Gadling Labs, permit us to give you a tip before inking the celluloid: people who vote in these contests dig two things:

  1. The best cinematogrphy ever known to man
  2. Hotties

Aim to have one of the two concepts in your entry and you’re guaranteed a shot. Have both and you’ll take home the gold.

United puts Economy Plus on sale, $5 more than coach

Normally when airlines put fares on sale it’s no big news here at Gadling. Not a day goes by when some legacy airline or some large hotel chain releases a paltry discount on overpriced tickets — a sale that most times is not much cheaper than your average unadvertised, competitive faremongering.

United did something a bit different this time though: they put their Economy Plus section on sale, that section in the front of coach with a bit more legroom and a lot more comfort for longer haul flights. With reductions of up to 40%, some flights in E+ are now just five bucks more than a seat in coach.

This is, unfortunately, only limited to certain routes in the endless volumes of daily United flights, but hey, for the price it might be worth looking into. The sale runs until November 12 and you can check out the full details over at United.

Alternatively, you can save that $5 and use it for a sandwich while on board, but that thus begs the question: food or legroom? Guns or butter?

United creates Optathlon games for day-of-departure prizes

It’s a long shot, but if all of your attempts to find a better seat, upgrade and improve your upcoming trip on United Airlines have failed then there’s one last thing you can do. Last week, United launched a series of video games on their website with prizes aimed at traveling customers.

What can you win? Among other things, it’s possible to earn the opportunity to skip those pesky long lines at the TSA checkpoint or maybe even win an upgrade to economy plus. All you have to do is play for an entry.

Obviously, United’s new games are targeted at educating the consumer on their full host of products and upgrades, including economy plus (more leg room and closer to the front of the plane) and elite status. And you will have to install a little game widget into your browser to make the games work. But for the chance to win a sweet little upgrade either on the plane or at the airport, it’s definitely worth a shot. Besides, the games are kind of fun.

You can check out the full series of games over at Optathlon.com.

[image credit to flickr’s lovely lemur]