Plane De-Icing

by Iva Skoch on

Have you every wondered what the deal is with plane de-icing? I always have, and now I have some answers to share. First, why? This is an important one: when ice forms on the wings of a plane, it limits the flow of air over the wing surface, which limits the wings’ ability to create lift. That’s bad.

Second, what is done? Some airports have a car-wash-like set-ups where they can literally taxi the plane through to de-ice. Others use booms like shown at right. Hot water (140 degrees F) is mixed with special chemicals to blast off any ice that has formed.

Then, a second spray is applied that acts likes a wax, preventing ice from forming for a time after the de-icing. The total amount of liquid sprayed is around 100 liters (about 25 gallons). Once this is done, planes must take off within about 30 minutes, which is the time during which the preventative lasts.

Turkish Airlines Employees Off Camel

by Neil Woodburn on

A job well done is celebrated in a variety of different ways around the globe. It could be a pint of ale at the local pub, catered lunch at the office, or the sacrificial slaying of a camel.

Turkish Airlines has been receiving a bit of bad publicity recently when it was learned that maintenance workers at Istanbul’s Ataturk airport decided to celebrate the completion of long, drawn-out project by butchering a camel on the tarmac and distributing 1,540 pounds of its meat to those who got the job done.

Can you imagine looking out of your plane window at the airport and instead of seeing baggage handlers doing their thing, you spot a bunch of blood-covered maintenance workers hacking up a camel?

According to USA Today, such sacrifices are quite common in Turkey to celebrate “a happy event or the accomplishment of a difficult task.”

Oh man, you can just hear that clock tick backwards on Turkey’s bid to become part of the European Union.

Shoe Sniffer

by Iva Skoch on

The TSA has just approved a new scanner by GE Security, which allows airline passengers to step into/onto a kiosk that not only scans their shoes (no shoe removal necessary!), but it also has an explosives trace detector built in.

This means it performs the equivalent of the “air puff” test, but it actually tests the passenger’s fingers for traces of explosives.

Unfortunately, it will only be used for those folks that have signed up for the poorly-implemented Registered Traveler Program, which charges passengers $100/year…and has thus far only been implemented in Orlando.

But, last time I was at Newark, TSA folks were simply waving us through the air-puff machine, even though it was showing the red, “stop” hand sign, just proving there’ll always be a human element thrown into these tests.

Madrid Airport Stuck in Low Gear

by Iva Skoch on

You might remember our baggage disaster, reported on these pages (by the way, thanks for the great comments). Well, three months later, almost to the day, believe it or not, we got our bag back (just as we were still wrangling about getting paid for the lost contents). Funny thing is, even though we didn’t go to Madrid, our bag did, judging by the multitude of tags. Now I can see what the problem was.

It turns out Madrid’s $8B shining new airport is a logistical nightmare: it has 24-minute treks between terminals, and one of Europe’s worst flight-delay records among other problems. The international terminal alone is two buildings that sit 1.6 miles apart, connected by rail. Not too surprising, for the world’s largest airport terminal.

This means that there are delays for bags, too. At best, it will take your bags 15 minutes to get to the nearest carousel. Handlers are trying to double the speed of the conveyors, to make up for the long distances.

I’m guessing our bag was lost somewhere within the 8.5 million-square-foot facility (that’s larger than the entire square footage of NYC’s 19-building, 22-acre Rockefeller Center). What one wonders, however, is how this was supposed to benefit passengers, rather than some architect’s fantasy.

JetBlue to Pittsburgh – $29

by Erik Olsen on

Once again I am trying to keep my fingers on the pulse of great deals out there. And once again JetBlue comes forward with one. The fare from New York City to Pittsburgh requires a 14-day advance purchase, and you can book this sucka through the month of April, even though you probably really want to be in Pittsburgh later in the year so as to avoid, you know, the cold.