All Asia Pass

by Neil Woodburn on

Want to check out Asia but not spend a fortune doing so?

Cathay Pacific has reinstituted the wonderful All-Asia Pass. For just $1,399, passengers can fly between 23 Asian cities as many times as they’d like over a 21 day period. That means one can fly from Bali, to Bangkok, to Ho Chi Minh, Kuala Lumpur, Tokyo, and still have 18 other Asian gateways to visit. The best deal? Include Karachi in your plans if you really want to maximize the distance traveled. Or, for just a few hundred dollars more, extend the pass to include a gateway city in Australia.

This is a great deal and one we suggest snapping up as quickly as possible as only a limited number will be sold.

Be sure to read the fine print, however. Restrictions do apply.

Get Through the Security Line Fast

by Erik Olsen on

I am sitting here right now in the dismal fluorescent light of an airport terminal waiting for my flight…oh, I mean, my second flight. You see, I missed the first one because I checked in (I’m not kidding) two minutes late and the machine at United Airlines took me off their system. I was two minutes late, by the way, because the people at the United Counter were moving more slowly than Molasses on a ski hill. They did give me a standby ticket, and I likely WOULD have made my plane except that the security line was absurdly long. Oh, the travails of travel.

So here I sit, frustrated and rather ill tempered at the folks at United who did not, IMHO, do much to really help me out. And then I came upon this story about a new system i the testing phase that is allowing people to SKIP the security line altogether. MAN, that would have helped me out BIG time. The new service is being tested in Orlando, but will is expected to be available at the Cincinnati, Indianapolis, San Jose, Calif., airports, and Terminal 7 at New York’s JFK International Airport.

So how does it work? Clients pay $100 and undergo a background check. Then it gets really high tech. These “extra-special” customers (aka: The Rich) then have to insert a biometric identification card into a kiosk which scans their irises and their fingerprints to verify their identity. Then, getting even more Philip Dick, they place a fingertip on an explosives scanning device and stand on a scanning platform to determine whether their footwear hides a bomb. Then, a genetic test is run to determine if you are genetically fit to board in First Class or Coach. You then collect your nutrition tablets and plug the intelligence enhancement system (IES) into the QVR-1 jack at the base of your skull. Then sit back and enjoy your favorite band in holographic 4-D or learn three languages before you arrive. All very nice.

(I was, of course, kidding about that last part: the future there will be no “nutrition tablets”…people will be able to eat whatever they want and we will simply take a “fat pill” to reduce our weight. A Brave New World, indeed.

Coach is, um, Used to Be, Comfy

by Erik Olsen on

Our friend and blogging mentor Jason Calacanis logs a LOT of miles as an entrepreneur, and I like to keep an eye on his blog to see what he’s up to. His posts are almost always thoughtful ruminations on the state of the blogging biz and what’s happening in the high tech world, but sometimes he does venture into travel-related areas. Here, he points us to a rather interesting picture of, well, a poster that seems to show what traveling coach could have been like. The hilarious circa 1970s shot shows a welcoming stewardess in a gaping lounge of red-upholstered seats which we are led to believe was once a possibility in coach travel. Right. If that ever happened, it certainly didn’t last long as now coach basically means being scrunched up like a prisoner of war in solitary confinement. But what I love most about the photo is the 2001 A Space Odyssey feel to airline travel. Alas, in my best John Kerry accent, would that it were. Would that it were.

New Budget Airline in Asia

by Erik Olsen on

I have little idea how difficult it is to get to and from a country like Malaysia and/or whether a new airlines there is needed, but here’s some new news for folks who are interested. According to this piece over at Yahoo, Malaysian aviation tycoon Tony Fernandes launched a new long-haul budget airline named AirAsia X, which will start flying to destinations in China and Britain in July.

The new airline is expected to carry some 500,000 passengers in first year of operations, and will ultimately cover China, India, Europe, Australia, Asia and the Middle East. Funny that North America was left our of the equation, but perhaps we have enough budget airlines covering these routes from the US as it is.

The Knee Defender: Preventing Airplane Seats from Reclining

by Neil Woodburn on

I’m not sure if this is horrible or brilliant.

I suppose the answer is horrible if it happens to me and brilliant if I can do it to someone else. The item in question here is the “Knee Defender.” This is a little gadget which clamps on the pull-down tray of an airplane seat and prevents the person in front of you from leaning back.

Sure, it’s insidious and evil, but it’s also genius. The only problem is that many airlines prohibit the use of such contraptions. The clamps are small enough, however, that it is difficult for a flight attendant to see unless, of course, the person in front of you complains. Chances are they’ll simply think their seat is broken and grumpily sit upright the duration of the flight.

This sort of pisses me off. I would almost guarantee that anyone who selfishly uses such a device reclines their own seat while doing so. Jerks!