Measles infected passenger puts five airports on alert

by Scott Carmichael on

Health officials have issued a warning to passengers and airport workers at five cities after a 27 year old woman flew from London to New Mexico infected with measles.

She had not been immunized for the disease and arrived in Albuquerque quite ill.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are working with the airlines to notify all passengers who were seated in her vicinity on the plane, but there are plenty of other opportunities to catch what she was traveling with.

Anyone that was within five rows of the woman is at risk of catching measles. Most people are immunized for measles at an early age, but those who did not receive the shot are now especially at risk, including babies and pregnant women.

The routes the infected passenger flew on are:

February 20 – London – Washington Dulles
February 22 – Baltimore – Denver
February 22 – Denver – Albuquerque

The CDC recommends that if you were on any of these flights you contact your family doctor. Symptoms include a runny nose, small red spots all over the body and a fever. If left untreated, the disease could lead to ear infections, pneumonia or even death.

British Airways passenger sets up website to complain about in-air bed bug infestation

by Scott Carmichael on

Bed bugs are no longer limited to hotel rooms – the biting bugs have now made their way on to commercial flights. One British Airways passenger got such a nasty case of bug bites, that she had to go through a very intensive detox to kill all the bugs on her clothes.

After failing to get an apology from British Airways, she took to the Internet and created ba-bites.com to bring some public attention to BA’s total lack of interest in their inflight bug problem.

The site gets attention the best possible way – with graphic photos of her bites. One example of her bites is seen above – the rest of the photos can be found here.

Once the site went up, the media got involved, and finally got a reply from British Airways, offering a very weak apology a compensation offer.

I’m torn on the whole issue – we know bed bugs travel with people in their clothes and their luggage, and no amount of pesticides will completely get rid of them. It only takes one passenger carrying bed bugs from a hotel to pass them on to the next passenger in that seat. The only solution would be spraying chemicals after every single flight, which would probably create a very nasty environment in the plane.

The bigger issue here is a total breakdown of customer service by British Airways. To read the entire story and hear how other airlines dealt with this issue, head on over to ba-bites.com.

Time for a career change? Become the personal travel agent for the British Royal Household

by Scott Carmichael on

Out of work, or in desperate need of a career change? How about becoming the personal travel expert for the Queen and her family?

The job requirements are simple – you need to be legally allowed to work in the UK, and you’ll need to make sure all travel for the Royal Household is “appropriate and efficient”.

Bottom line – you’ll be the private travel agent for the entire Royal Family.

Pay is quite generous – up to £75,000, or about $121,000. Your fleet of available transportation methods includes helicopters, trains, chartered aircraft and commercial flights.

Part of your responsibilities also includes ensuring the safety of the Royal Family and that their trips are environmentally friendly. CO2 reports will be expected on time each month.

You’ll be in charge of almost 3,000 official trips each year, working with a £7 million budget.

You’ll also need good negotiating skills, because nobody likes paying rack rate for hotels and flights. Your ability to talk the price down will probably have a positive impact your salary.

You have till March 14th to apply for the job. Oh, and we have no idea who gets to keep the miles for all their travel but chances are you won’t be putting any of it on your private credit card.

[Photo: Indigo/Getty Images]

Deal: Discount code for up to 30% off a Virgin America flight

by Scott Carmichael on

Are you a fan of Virgin America? What about discounts? If you answered yes to both of these, then you’ll want to head on over to this web site to get your hands on a quick 15% discount code for Virgin America. Invite five of your friends to the site, and your discount doubles to 30%.

Rules for the promo code are pretty standard:

One time use promo code is valid for non-refundable Main Cabin tickets only in fare classes S, L, M, U, E, H, B, or V. Travel must occur between March 9, 2011 and June 15, 2011.

To enter, you’ll obviously need to hand over your email address, but you can enter without subscribing to any spam or other marketing materials. Best of all, your discount code also comes with a free entry to the Morgan Hotels SoHo invasion prize package. Good luck!

Delta airlines puts elderly woman on wrong flight due to boarding pass mix-up

by Laurel Miller on

In a Top 10 of phone calls you probably don’t want to receive from an airport official: “Your grandmother was found in baggage claim.”

Eighty-year-old Nefissa Yesuf’s Sunday Atlanta to Dulles flight didn’t go quite as planned. CNN reports that airline and airport staff failed to notice that a Delta employee had allegedly given her someone else’s boarding pass by mistake. Yesuf, who is from Ethiopia and doesn’t speak English, instead ending up landing in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Yusef’s granddaughter, Melika Adem, says she received a call from the airport telling her Yusef had been found in baggage claim, crying. According to Adem, Delta gave her grandmother someone else’s ticket, and an airline employee then wheeled her through security, where no one caught the snafu. Adem also states that the name on Yusef’s boarding pass wasn’t even “close” to her grandmother’s. Fortunately, the two women were reunited Sunday evening.

The incident is under investigation by both Delta and the TSA. TSA officers are required to match boarding passes with a passenger’s driver’s license, passport, or other photo identification. Says TSA representative Greg Soule,”Every day TSA screens nearly two million passengers and utilizes many layers of security to keep our nation’s transportation systems secure,” he said. “Every passenger passes through multiple layers of security to include thorough screening at the checkpoint.”

[Photo credit: Flickr user kappuru]