What do you think?
Psst, they’re also having a contest.
“Like” their Facebook page for a chance to win two round-trip economy plus tickets to Israel. No excuses needed.
Feel like cracking the cap of a mini airline liquor bottle in flight? You better hurry; the skies could be filled with robot-like bartenders soon.
The Skytender Trolley dispenses hot and cold drink options without the cabin crew having to pour and open traditional drink containers for passengers. Flight attendants using the system are able to serve hot and cold drink items like juices, soft drinks, cocktails and hot drinks in less time.
Airlines and passengers will like the more efficient operation, enabling cabin crew to serve more people, faster. Skytender can produce 235 drinks out of 100 or more available flavors. Cabin crew can forget about making coffee or going back and forth to the aircraft galley for water refills as Skytender holds 30 liters of hot and cold water too.
In the works for several years, Skytender Trolley went along on its first ever commercial flight on German airline WDL Aviation flying from Cologne to Palma Majorca with in-flight caterer LSG Sky Chefs along for the ride.
“Our first ever test flight was a complete success, the system operated as expected and we have generated even more interest in our innovative product,” said Oliver Kloth of Skymax in a Travel Daily News article, adding “the passengers were extremely pleased with the beverage options and most importantly the quality and speed of service.”
Want to see the Skytender Trolley in action? Check this video:
Airline travel tips come from a variety of sources, all with good intentions. Crowd-sourced recommendations have their place, but often amount to more of a popularity contest than information to bank on. Professional travel writers make it all sound easy but shouldn’t they? It is their job to do so. Going directly to the source, airlines offer their own version of travel tips, based on moving millions of people every day.
Alaska Air suggests some everyday travel tips that include keeping our confirmation codes handy for when a reservation needs to be checked, changed or modified. Armed with that gateway code, we can check flight times, know when to arrive at the airport and gate and choose from a variety of check-in options.
On holiday travel, Alaska Air suggests wrapping gifts at our destination since they are subject to TSA inspection and allow plenty of time to get through congested parking lots and airports during holiday travel periods.American Airlines suggests taking it easy between flights in their Admirals Club with a One-Day Pass, available online or at self-service check-in machines to relax in comfort and elegance. The one-day pass can be used at multiple lounges throughout a day of travel.
Buying a ticket and not exactly sure on the flight times? American Airlines reminds us of the relatively new 24-hour hold option we can put on an airline ticket while we firm up travel plans or shop around.
Offering some tips for healthy travel, United Airlines suggests wearing comfortable shoes, getting a good night’s sleep before flying and drinking plenty of liquids, but not caffeinated or alcoholic beverages.
“While away, get as many hours of sleep every day as you normally would at home,” says United Airlines on its website. “Taking short naps of 30 to 40 minutes will refresh you as you adjust to the new time zone.”
Light meals and simple stretching exercises can help too, says United with detailed tips to help avoid Deep Vein Thrombosis, the formation of a blood clot in a deep vein, mainly in the legs.
Airports also have travel tips for us, like this one from San Francisco International Airport:
The jet age made a huge impact on our planet, making much of it accessible in a single day’s worth of travel. Compared to other modes of transportation, air travel powered by jet engines took more people to more places, faster and less expensive than ever. Now, a UK company has new technology that could provide the propulsion needed to put a plane in orbit and open a new era in travel.
Reaction Engines Ltd (REL) is a company in the United Kingdom formed to develop the technology needed to make an engine that can operate at up to five times the speed of sound or fly directly into Earth orbit.
“We have made the biggest breakthrough in propulsion technology since the jet engine,” said REL chief executive Tim Hayter in a CNN report.
Developing ultra-lightweight heat exchangers, capable of putting a plane into a high altitude cruise, REL promises flight to anywhere on the planet in no more than four hours.
If any of this sounds familiar, it is. In the 2008 article “Reaction Engines’ A2 supersonic jet: Europe to Australia at 4,000 mph,” Gadling reported on REL’s claim that they “could one day shuttle passengers from Europe to Down Under in less than five hours, cruising at up to 4,000 miles-per-hour along the way.”
The history behind this new technology goes back much further though. REL has been working on it since 1989. REL company founder and chief engineer Alan Bond has devoted his entire life to the effort, starting by blasting off rockets from his back yard as a young boy, as we see in this video:
Like many others, I operate on a shoestring budget, more often than not, out of stubbornness. I prefer to call it budget justice, a principle of savings that guides people like me to needlessly circle the block for a free parking space only to miss the event that got me into my car in the first place, or, worse yet, to time and time again book flights on Spirit Airlines, the ultra low-cost carrier known for luring in customers with absurdly low air fare and then assaulting them with excessive fees, uncomfortable cabins and culturally offensive advertising.
When faced with the choice of true comfort or the perceived value from Spirit, I will always choose Spirit. Fortunately, my experience has prepared me with some survival techniques for the ultimate budget justice. Here’s my advice.
Book without bait
Spirit is almost always running a promotion to get you to the site in hopes that as you book you’ll concede to one of their many aggressive offers before checkout. When enticed with low fares, it always helps to first double check for promo codes on Retail Me Not. If I missed a promo by a few days, I zoom over to Orbitz, where the deal might still be alive; there, I’ll have a higher chance of finding the best fare.
While booking, read each page carefully, and just say no! Decline to choose your seat, decline to check your bag, decline to carry on, decline to rent a car, a hotel, just about everything. You’ll be glad you didn’t take the bait to extend your relationship with Spirit any further than you had to.Perfect the personal item
A shoestring traveler already knows that to avoid fees, checked luggage is off limits. But Spirit often surprises passengers by charging for carry-on bags as well. A non-member can pay online in advance $35 each way for their carry-on bag, or get gouged at the airport kiosk and pay $50. Worse yet, if you bypass pre-paying for your carry-on luggage, you can be stopped at the boarding gate and charged a $100 fee. Suddenly, that $99 round-trip flight is starting to look more like a $300 nightmare.
To fight for your budget justice, perfect the personal item – a purse, briefcase or backpack that you can carry on and stow under the seat for free. A backpack meeting the required dimensions of 16 x 14 x 12 inches is much larger than you think. I often load up my personal item with a MacBook, and four days of clothes. I’ve even traveled with friends who have gone as far as to wear a comical amount of layers in order to skirt the charges.
Side-step the seat selection
When flying budget airlines, sometimes the only comfort you can count on is traveling with a partner, but let’s be realistic – just how memorable is your flight together? I’d wager about as memorable as sitting in a doctor’s waiting room. You’ll get where you’re going regardless of where you are seated, and the worst-case scenario is you are separated from your party for a few terrible hours.
Still, there are ways to increase your chances of sitting together without paying, and it’s based on a system of trusting that everyone else is just as stubborn as you are.
When Spirit asks you to choose your seat ahead of time ($12-$199 each way), simply decline. Each time I purchased two seats on the same transaction, I was able to sit with my partner for free. I simply checked in online early, selected that I would like a random seating arrangement, and the computer put us together.
Recently, when traveling with a group of friends on Spirit, we had all purchased tickets separately and were still able to sit together without paying the price (though we accrued some small fees). Instead of checking in online, we arrived early at the check-in counter ($1 per customer, $5 per boarding pass printout). Even though we had separate confirmation numbers, we approached the counter together and the attendant kindly seated us together as one party. Granted, you may be at the mercy of an airline employee’s mood; it’s still worth a shot.
Fight for free “water”
On a recent flight I sat near an elderly veteran. When the Spirit flight attendant passed by to collect credit cards for pricey drink and snack orders, the gentleman kindly asked, “Do you have free ice water?” With a big smile simulating the pleasant demeanor reserved for a 4 year old, the attendant responded, “I can give you ice. That turns into water.” The veteran accepted his cups of free ice and waited patiently for them to melt. I couldn’t help but admire him for many reasons, not excluding his tenacity for a deal!
[Photo credit: Flickr user theskinnyailurophile]