The Gift of Flight

by Neil Woodburn on

Don’t know what to give your favorite traveler this holiday season? How about the gift of flight?

Sure, not too many of us have the money to be buying even our very best friends an airplane ticket but this is simply not the case when it comes to Ryanair. The European budget airline which flies to 24 countries routinely sells tickets for very, very low prices, some as low as a penny. A round trip ticket from Barcelona to Dublin in January, for example, costs only 60 euros, tax included.

So why not buy your European friends some Ryaniar gift certificates? They range in price from €25 to €200. If used smartly, a €200 gift certificate could keep your friend happily flying for most of the year. What’s a better gift than that?

Mice on a Plane

by Neil Woodburn on

It sounds like a bad horror movie plot but passengers on board a Saudi Arabian Airlines flight from Riyadh to Tabuk experienced a bit of in-flight horror as 80 mice escaped from a passenger’s baggage and ran amuck through the aircraft.

Local press had no explanation on how the man was able to smuggle the mice onto the airplane, or why, for that matter, he was traveling with them in the first place. The mice did, however, manage to eat the copilot and gnaw their way through most of the hydraulics before being wrestled to the ground and… um… um… just kidding folks. Ha! Other than jumping on a few heads, the only damage the mice created was purely psychological.

Now, I’m not normally a squeamish person, but I can’t imagine being trapped in an airplane with so many furry rodents afoot. Ugh.

Last Minute Travel Deals: Not the Deal they used to be

by Neil Woodburn on

I’m in the process of trying to plan a last minute Christmas vacation and am not having much luck.

I’ve heard for a number of years that last-minute travel can be a great place to find deals. Airlines with empty seats and hotels with empty beds often slash prices in a last-minute attempt to fill them.

According to an article in the Mercury News by Marjie Lambert, however, this used to be the case 2-3 years ago but times, as they say, have changed. Apparently the industry has become far more efficient at filling empty spaces well in advance and no longer need to drastically cut prices to bump up occupancy.

This is bad news for those of us who sometimes wait too long before booking our vacation.

All is not lost, however. A couple of sites, such as site59.com and lastminutetravel.com, still do good business catering to last-minute travelers. The trick, according to Lambert, is to simply be flexible with time and location. The best deals to be had will be those you snatch up after forgoing your initial destination.

Right now I’m thinking a beach, any beach in any country, will hopefully be flexible enough.

Sea Sick on a Plane

by Iva Skoch on

This video is worth watching. A Northwest airlines flight landing at SeaTac had a rough, and aborted, landing, due to high winds the other day.

The plane later landed safely, but it’s a good lesson to remember with winter and holiday travel here: our sincerest intentions are never a match against mother nature. Buckle up!

Spirit Airlines to Offer Flights to Port-au-Prince

by Adrienne Wilson on

In today’s competitive airline industry carriers have to think outside of the box, be sharper than a razor’s edge and fly to destinations where many dare not to go. As of recent, the low-cost carrier, Spirit Airlines, has filed an application with the federal government to fly out of Ft. Lauderdale, FL and into Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Me, personally, I think the news is great and will be all the merrier if things go in favor for Spirit Airlines. First off, it would make the carrier the only big U.S. low-cost airline to offer regularly scheduled service to Haiti. Secondly, I live only a few hours drive from Ft. Lauderdale and I wouldn’t mind checking out Haiti for a weekend or so.

However, this short news update from USA Today’s blog gets mixed reviews and heated in the comments. If the news sounds good to you keep your fingers crossed or just go check out what some of the other people seem to think about traveling to Haiti.