10 passengers we love to hate: Day 8 — passengers who misuse the FA call button

by Scott Carmichael on

We’ve already reached the 8th day of our “10 passengers we love to hate” lineup. You’ve been able to read about passengers who misbehave around the baggage carousel, people who don’t know how an escalator works, and folks who annoy others with their Bluetooth headset.

This entry in our lineup is about passengers who think the attendant call button is a butler call bell. For some reason, almost every flight has one of these jackasses on board.

10 minutes into the flight, you’ll hear the first ding. Now, I’m not against using the call button for an emergency, or if you are in dire need of a drink to help take some medication, but the call button is not there to assist you in making a drink order before the attendant starts the drink service. It is also not there if you want to know how long it is till the plane lands.

Also, on many flights, there are always people who can’t see the difference between white and orange buttons, and keep pressing the call button thinking it’ll turn their little light on – unless you are severely color blind there is no valid reason to hit the wrong button.

So, unless you are unable to walk, just get out of your seat and walk up to the galley for whatever it is you need. It’ll help stretch your legs (and prevent DVT at the same time). Bottom line – the flight attendant is not your butler, and they have another 100 passengers to deal with.

Virgin Atlantic’s 25 year anniversary sale fares starts right……NOW!

by Grant Martin on

Midnight sure is a strange time to be posting deals, isn’t it? Well, there’s a reason. Virgin Atlantic is celebrating it’s 25th anniversary in a variety of ways over the course of the year, and one of them is in launching a crazy 24 hour fare sale from Newark to the United Kingdom. Starting RIGHT NOW.

According to our source inside of the company, you’ve got all day to book tickets as cheap as $186 one way from Newark. Once availability runs out, you’re out of luck. So for those of you on the west coast, start clicking. For those of you who just woke up on the east coast, you’d better hope that there’s something left.

The best part is that you can book tickets from July 1st, which means the fares are vaild for high summer season. So grab the kids, scrap the staycation and book tickets to London this summer. Combined with the falling Pound Sterling, you may not get a chance like this again for a while.

Book tickets at VirginAtlantic.com soon, the offer expires at midnight on June 10th.

10 passengers we love to hate: Day 7 — mobile phones and Bluetooth headsets

by Scott Carmichael on

It is already day 7 of our 10 days of passengers we love to hate lineup.

Today’s annoying passenger is a relatively new phenomenon, and has been slowly going from bad to worse in recent years.

I’m of course talking about people who never learned basic phone etiquette.

As a geek, I should be more immune to these annoyances, but there is something about the loud Bluetooth headset wearing passenger that makes me want to punch them in the face.

For some unknown reason, as soon as some people clip their headset to their head, they turn into really annoying people. Even people who are normally quite quiet think the airport is the perfect place to make random loud calls to people they’d normally not talk to.

I have a theory about it – these people think that talking on the phone at the airport makes them look important. They see “real” business travelers around them, and have the urge to try and blend in and look impressive.

Well, I have news for you – if you walk through the airport wearing your headset and talking loud enough for the entire terminal to hear you – you are a dork.

The worst offenders are people who don’t hang up and remove the damn headset when they are talking to someone else. Ever been behind one of these jerks? They are in line waiting for a ticket agent, and kill some time on the phone with their stock broker/money manager/bookie/therapist. Then when it is finally their turn, they think it is cool to continue their phone call and try to have the ticket agent help them.

I love technology, and I think the Bluetooth headset is a great tool, but unless you are expecting phone calls 24/7, just put the headset away. Really, you are not that important.

United Airlines timelapse video shows how first class seats are installed

by Scott Carmichael on

Check out this amazing timelapse video made by United Airlines. It shows the retrofitting of their first class cabin from their old seats to their new lie-flat sleeper seats.

Of course, United Airlines is years behind on most other International airlines of the world, but it is still good to see them update their cabin and use thew power of Youtube to show the process.

It is just a shame they had to use the same music for the clip that they have used since 1976 for virtually every single commercial (and even the boarding music). Yes, it’s a fantastic piece of music, but surely the time has come for something as refreshing as their new seats?

Ethiopian stowaway lands in Dulles – will be sent back home

by Scott Carmichael on

Baggage handlers at Dulles International airport got quite the shock when they noticed a arm sticking out from the bags in the hold of an Ethiopian Airways 767.

The arm belonged to a stowaway, who was naturally suffering from dehydration. For some reason, stowaways are often smart enough to get past airport security, but not smart enough to bring water on board.

The plane had arrived from Addis Ababa and made a stopover in Rome, so the man had been locked in the luggage hold for about 20 hours. He has been transported to a federal holding facility, and will be sent back to Ethiopia after being charged.

Officials were quick to point out that the man was not considered to be a terrorist threat.

Despite the large number of international flights arriving in the US every day, stowaway passengers are still fairly rare, and I’m sure the common misconception that the cargo hold is unpressurized helps scare a lot of would-be stowaways out of the idea. Of course, reading that stowaways are immediately sent back to their homeland also makes the whole idea of hiding in the cargo hold rather unappealing.