CW network to launch series on Virgin America flight attendants

by Grant Martin on

Have you ever wondered what Gadling’s resident flight attendant Heather Poole does in her spare time? It’s the stuff that legends are made out of — or maybe TV shows. That’s what the CW is banking on as they prepare to launch their new series called ‘Fly Girls’ this spring, in which they follow a hand full of Virgin America flight attendants around the country, working on planes, dating rockstars, hitting up parties and enjoying the life of young jetsetters.

As a recent article in the LA Times puts it, think Gossip Girl meets The Hills — in the airline industry. The perfect recipe for drama, right?

As to Virgin America‘s role in the overall series, they’re trying to stay hands off. That same article quotes Porter Gale, the VP of marketing as keen on letting the production crew do its thing without any egregious VX branding or advertorial throughout the series. Good call.

Having personally met two of the crew around which this series is based I’m interested to see how their personalities filter through CW. In real life they’re fantastic, friendly people and my hope is that the camera doesn’t change this.

Either way, ‘Fly Girls” premiers in March, at which point you can see Louise (left) and Mandy (right) in action. Keep an eye out for them in the skies in the meantime.

TSA fails to detect gun at Montana airport – may be replaced by private firm

by Scott Carmichael on

Stories of poor TSA security screenings are not new – several days ago we wrote about a man who passed through a Milwaukee checkpoint with shotgun shells. In this “TSA screw-up of the day”, we head to Gallatin Field, serving Bozeman, Montana.

This may be a fairly small airport, but that should not be an excuse for the TSA to miss a firearm in a carry-on bag. The gun belonged to an “unidentified man”, who was honest enough to notify the cabin crew when he noticed his error. As is normally the case, the plane returned to the gate, and was delayed for over an hour while the TSA did their job (again).

Now, I understand how our constant “TSA bashing” be be getting a little boring, but this story suddenly gets really interesting. Airport director Brian Sprenger is so fed up with the government screeners, that he is seriously considering replacing them with an outside security firm.

Of course, a local union leader is “strongly opposed”, claiming for-profit security firms are a bad idea, because they’ll need to make a profit, while working with the same budget offered to the TSA. But to be honest, I don’t see how a private firm could be any worse than the government workers in place right now.

Failing to detect a gun is the kind of mistake that could cost the lives of everyone on the plane. Too much emphasis is placed on items like water bottles and false no-fly list passengers, that you sometimes get the feeling they forget to keep a close eye on the most obvious issues.

There are no immediate plans to replace the TSA at Bozeman just yet – but the airport is in the exploratory phase, which on its own should set off some alarm bells within government.

Check out these other stories from the airport checkpoint!

BA flights attendants trash good wine in protest

by Katie Hammel on

According to the UK’s Telegraph, the latest casualty of the problems between British Airways’ cabin crews and the company is vintage wine. Those involved in the alcohol abuse were members of the British Airlines Stewards and Stewardesses Association (Bassa), which is part of the union that represents the airline’s 13,000 cabin crew. They say they destroyed the wine as a symbol of “passive resistance” against some of the new practices that British Airways has instituted.

The unhappy employees had planned on striking over the Christmas holiday, but thankfully, the strike was blocked by a judge.

Apparently, the flap all started when BA introduced some new cost cutting measures – which included firing hundreds of employees and freezing pay for current workers. As a result, the “disaffected” workers have stopped any of their own money-saving efforts onboard the airplanes. One worker was quoted in the Telegraph article as saying that “No-one is doing anything to help save costs any more. Whereas we used to keep unfinished bottles of wine in first-class to save money, now they’re routinely poured down the sink.”

Let’s hope the union and British Airways can resolve their issues soon. I hate to see good wine go to waste.%Gallery-76818%

%Gallery-79586%

Pickpocket empties business class passenger wallets

by Scott Carmichael on

Theft from airplane luggage is not new – but when I read about a pickpocket that emptied the wallets of five business class passengers, I realized that these thieves may have found themselves a new place to work.

The thief earned around 4,000 euros ($5,800) from just five wallets in the business class cabin. When the passengers alerted the cabin crew, police in Paris were called and were waiting for the plane. The Air France plane had left Tokyo, so given its length, most of the passengers were probably sleeping when the thief hit.

The lesson here is simple – if you fall asleep on a plane, be sure that nobody can get at your belongings. Sadly, it isn’t as simple as it sounds. I’ve read reports of people having their laptop computer stolen, or other valuable items removed from their bags. In some cases, thieves may even be able to remove items from the bag placed under your seat.

A great site with tips on how to be safe on the road, along with stories of theft, muggers and pickpockets is Thiefhunters In Paradise. If you worry about your belongings, this really is a great resource to learn how criminals operate.

Designing the ideal boarding pass

by Grant Martin on

Underwhelmed by your boarding pass? You’re not the only one. That clustermess of bar codes, letters and numbers has enough discombobulating components to make your head spin, usually in the critical four seconds when you’re putting your belt back on after security and NEED to know where your gate is.

Tyler Thompson over at Squarespace realized this, and in a brief bout of creative design genius proffered a few alternatives to the everyday, sad boarding pass of today’s airlines.

You can check them all out at passfail.squarespace.com, where commenters have taken on the initiative to post a wide spectrum of redesigned passes on their own.

How hard would this be to implement in real life? As Virgin America has shown it’s not too difficult to inject a little bit of punch into your card stock, but Thompson’s designs may be a reach. Color isn’t easy or cost effective to print (for the negative details) and legacy airlines have a hard time making “drastic decisions” like changing their boarding passes.

Still, it’s an effective way to pointing out the lazy, boring design in the current state-of-the-art and the designs are magnificent. Perhaps when Gadling Air takes off we’ll borrow a few.