Running a travel blog and working with twenty wonderful writers, thousands of media and industry contacts and maintaining a dozen side projects keeps my stress level remarkably high, but I could never handle what an airline gate agent goes through.
Airfarewatchdog‘s Ramsey Qubein spent a day working as a Delta gate agent recently, and his experience was as dramatic as I had expected. In one day, he experienced the full spectrum of travelers, from crazy, angry and delayed passengers to the nicest people in the world. Among the experiences that he collected in one single day were passengers who handed him boarding passes with their teeth, decrypting the archaic booking system and angry flight attendants offloading from Detroit. You can read about them all over at Yahoo news.
Needless to say, I now have further respect for a vocation that I already thought was pretty darn dramatic. I’m amazed that anyone can handle that job every day without developing an ulcer.
The following video was created for parents traveling with small kids who might be a little nervous about subjecting their children to the new TSA procedures. Regardless of how you may feel about the new enhanced security measures, there’s no need for children to be scared. My son will explain to them what a pat down is and even share a few tips. But first a few things the TSA would like you to know about going through airport security with children…
TSA will screen everyone, regardless of age, including babies.
NEVER leave babies in an infant carrier while it goes through the X-ray.
All children must be removed from strollers and slings when passing through the machine.
All children’s items must go through the X-ray; diaper bags, toys, strollers, slings, etc.
If any of your items do not fit through the X-ray, a TSA officer will physically and visually inspect it.
If your child can walk through the metal detector unassisted, TSA recommends you and your child walk through separately.
Do not pass your baby to a TSA officer to hold as you walk through the X-ray machine.
If you choose to carry a child through and the alarm sounds, TSA will check both of you.
Medication, baby formula, food and breast milk, and juice are allowed in reasonable quantities exceeding 3.4 ounces, and are not required to be in a zip-top bag. Declare these items for inspection at the checkpoint.
Children under 12 who require extra screening will be subjected to a “modified” pat down. It’s less intrusive than what an adult might receive.
We’re all fed up with just about every aspect of air travel. The seats are cramped, the employees are rude and the TSA is trying to feel us up. We’re told that fares are cheaper than ever, but nobody seems to care about the high rates of unemployment and under-employment that have come to characterize our economy … meaning that these “cheap tickets” have a proportionately higher impact than appearance would dictate.
Meanwhile, the extra fees being tacked on haven’t been a big hit with most consumers, leading to an additional dose of animosity this holiday travel season. Well, one air carrier is fighting back. Dale Moss, CEO of OpenSkies, seems to be pretty fed up with the situation. In response to a report by the Consumer Travel Alliance, he took the time on the OpenSkies blog to remind his customers that his airline doesn’t charge extra fees for anything.
So, what got Moss all charged up? The Consumer Travel Alliance did some digging into the issue of hidden airline fees and found some disturbing (and downright bizarre) data:
1. Turkey equivalents: appalled at how much your Thanksgiving bird cost you this year? Well, Americans will buy the equivalent of 12.6 million of these gobblers when paying the extra fees associated with air travel during the holiday.
2. The big number: in case you aren’t tuned in to turkey economics, that adds up to $167 million in additional fees paid by consumers.
3. The small number: it’s based on the average cost of a 12-pound turkey this year: $13.25.
4. The profundity: the airlines could use this extra cash to buy a 12-pound turkey for every household in California.
5. The affected: according to the Air Transport Association, 24 million Americans will take to the skies during the 12-day Thanksgiving holiday travel season.
“Feathers are flying over hidden airline fees, because Americans are justifiably angry that they can’t see the true costs of air travel, nor compare the price of different flights against one another,” said Charles Leocha, director of the Consumer Travel Alliance. “Airlines expect consumers to dig through thousands of words of gobble-gobbledygook to find even the most basic fees. We say stuff that. It’s time to talk turkey and show consumers what their tickets will cost with all the fixings included.”
Early yesterday afternoon I passed through O’Hare airport on the far end of terminal 3, approached the security checkpoint and was selected for scanning with a backscatter detector. With a boarding pass in my back pocket I was also selected for a pat down. In this case, the TSA officer used the back of his hands to check my entire back side – and sent me on my way (without the computer that I forgot at the checkpoint) to gate K7.
The Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) was a simple security measure that day, but today, on the nation’s busiest travel day many will face it for the first time. And in protest, many are advocating a movement to opt-out of the scans.
In lieu, those who opt out will be subject to an intensive pat down, the results of which has been covered on the web ad nauseum.
More importantly, however, is the added time necessary for a pat down. AIT scans already take longer than a quick walk through a magnetometer, and opting out of one adds further time to the affair. Some critics of the movement are thus concerned that unsuspecting passengers will be held up at security and more flights will be missed.
Needless to say, if 95% of passengers choose not to be scanned by an AIT device this Wednesday it’ll surely send a strong message to the brass at the Department of Homeland Security. If a few trouble spots cause innocent passengers to miss flights though, I’m not so sure that it’s worth it.
Let your kids kick the seats in front of them: it could save your life. If you’re the passenger being inconvenienced, it may behoove you to find a way to cope.
A kid who would otherwise be branded a royal pain found a loaded gun magazine … that should have been in the hands of a law enforcement official … on a Southwest Airlines flight. To make matters worse, the media was actually on the plane!
Here’s how it happened:
1. A kid was sitting on his mother’s lap during a flight from Burbank, California to Phoenix, Arizona
2. The plane landed, and the kid crawled across the seats in his row
3. His foot knocked an item to the floor – it was a loaded gun magazine
4. A flight attendant picked it up, but not before someone from a CNN crew, photographer Gregg Canes, saw it
5. The CNN passenger asked to take pictures of it, but the flight attendant would not let him
6. The gun magazine was turned over to the authorities
It’s that simple, folks … but it does get a lot more interesting.According to a statement by Southwest, “The item was immediately turned over to the crew working the flight who called in the local authorities to handle the investigation,” continuing, “The passengers who were remaining on that flight were rescreened and the plane was thoroughly inspected before returning to service.” They were ten allowed to get off the plane.
Southwest spokeswoman Brandy King told CNN that the officer who left the gun mag behind did follow the proper procedures to bring his gun on the plane. CNN adds:
“The full magazine was found in a back seat pocket,” a TSA official told CNN. “We believe it was left by a law enforcement officer on a flight that originated in San Jose and landed in Burbank. The officer was not an air marshal and we are trying to establish contact with the agent.”
Canes put it best: “It was actually almost funny, given the amount of scrutiny that we’ve been paying to the [Transportation Security Administration] and personal security. It seemed almost funny to see a magazine with bullets in it just sort of lying on the floor of a commercial jetliner.”
Need a bit of irony to round this out? Canes must have been in a gun state of mind; he was headed to Phoenix to cover a Sarah Palin book signing.