No Kissing On American Airlines?

by Adrienne Wilson on

It’s been almost a year since the shocking Lorrie Heasley story. Remember the woman removed from a Southwest Airlines flight in Reno when she refused to take off or cover her offensive “Meet the F*ckers” shirt? It caused quite a stir then, and as of late, another airline has been raising a ruckus in the gay community it seems. The New Yorker runs a rather detailed piece on an incident where George Tsikhiseli, a television journalist, and his writer boyfriend, Stephan Varnier, were told the plane would be diverted if they did not drop the issue of touching and kissing on the plane.

Let me backtrack. The two passengers were on their way back into NYC from Paris when Varnier started dozing off and leaned his head on his partner Tsikhiseli. A stewardess came over and told them the purser said to stop the touching and kissing. The two passengers noted there was no kiss kissing, just mwah (smacking sound). When questioned, the purser also became rigid on the subject. Later, the purser informed Tsikhiseli that the captain would like to talk to him. The captain informed Tsikhiseli that if he didn’t stop arguing with the crew, the plane would be diverted. Now, what I’ve just provided is a very through-the-grapevine look at the story, so I suggest you read the entire deal over at the New Yorker.

If power truly rests in numbers and this story were to get into the hands of the entire gay community, I would think American Airlines screwed up, but overall the situation just sounds overly bizarre.

via WorldHum

Airbus 380 Delayed

by Iva Skoch on

Gadling blogged about Airbus’ flagship plane A380 before. Looks like we are going to have to wait six more months before Airbus deliverers their first A380. The first plane was supposed to have been delivered to Qantas in October 2006, but Airbus pushed it back to April 2007. Qantas is “disappointed.”

Interestingly enough, none of the American airlines have expressed real interest in the A380. According to BBC, among the biggest customers so far are Emirates (43 planes ordered), Lufthansa (15) and Qantas (12).

Timing aside, does Qantas honestly need planes that fit 800 people? Will they be flying the entire population of Australia back and forth every time they fly this thing? Does anyone need a plane to fit that many people? The prospect of boarding 800 people in a timely fashion scares me. I can just imagine it now: “Now boarding passengers in rows 120-140…”

Wasn’t this plane supposed to make flying easier?

Shoulder Season Deals to Europe

by Neil Woodburn on

Occasionally we here at Gadling like to point our readers in the direction of some great travel deals with the hope that some of our posts may have inspired you to hop on a plane and take off somewhere.

Yesterday’s LA Times featured an excellent article by Rosemary McClure highlighting a handful of great European deals to be had for Americans thinking about crossing the Atlantic.

Apparently the recent terrorist scare in London has prompted many travel agencies to start discounting tickets and packages earlier than they normally do at this time of year. The result is affordable air/hotel packages for those willing to venture forth to the Old World.

Click here to check out the best deals the LA Times dug up. In the meantime, to whet your appetite, consider this one: Seven nights in Budapest, Hungary, and Prague for just $851 including airfare from Los Angeles.

Wow! Get off your butts and cash in on some of these deals before they disappear.

Supermodels and Airplanes

by Neil Woodburn on

I hate when this happens.

I’m flying incognito and the airline I’m flying with tips off the press. I’m not aware of it and when I get off my 12 hour international flight all jetlagged and miserable I am immediately accosted by news crews and paparazzi. The airline gets some free publicity for such a bigwig as myself having flown with them, and in return, I get sleep-deprived photos plastered across the celebrity gossip magazines.

I’m sure this has happened to all of you out there so let’s spend a moment commiserating with poor Naomi Campbell who experienced this very same horror while flying Qantas.

The supermodel allegedly exploded shortly after arriving in Sydney and lambasted the airline for having revealed her itinerary. The Australian Daily Telegraph claims otherwise, however, as does Qantas. I’ll bet what angered her the most, however, is that the flight attendant in the above photo looks prettier than she does.

Whether the leak occurred or not, this kind of thing happens all the time. I usually have very little sympathy for the plight of celebrities, but let’s face it, nobody wants their photo taken after an international flight–especially those of us who make our living from our fantastic good looks!

Har har har!

Tajik Air – Party Plane

by Adrienne Wilson on

There are certain travel stories you hear about and instantly grow insanely jealous that you didn’t get the opportunity to experience them first-hand. If you recall I opted out of meeting my other travel companions in Moscow to fly through Istanbul to Dushanbe on Turkish Air. My main reason for doing so was to avoid the additional transit Russian visa fees and besides it was far out of the way. In the process of avoiding flying Russia’s friendly skies I apparently missed out on one of the wackiest flights of a lifetime. Reports from two parties confirm Tajik Air is somewhat of a party plane.

How-so? Well, for music you’ll be graced with the sounds of hundreds of cell phone ringtones as provided by your in-flight mobile phone DJ. Don’t count on sleeping. If you’re a pretty foreigner, do count on having your picture taken by the mobile phone DJ who has a built in camera on their phone. If you’re extra glamorous in their eyes you will also have your head patted during the flight. Just when things really start to shake up things will not only shift in the overhead bins, the overhead bins as well as the roof compartment will open. Please, no sudden moves.

The second report I received from a Nat Geo guy noted smoking on board was okay, beer guzzling and shirtless back massages were additionally “A-OK.” Did the flight attendants care? Nope. Was all this really real? How I would have loved to been a fly on the wall.