Gadling

Don’t lie.  I know you’ve thought about it.

At some point in your life you’ve been on a long flight with your significant other, the lights are off, everyone is sleeping, and your mind starts to wander.  Hmmm…. just how small is that bathroom in coach?  Where are the flight attendants?  And, most important, is it even physically possible, or are you just going to ruin your vacation a mere few hours into it with a pulled muscle, a bump on your forehead, and an emergency landing in Goose Bay, Canada because things got a little carried away?

Like climbing Mount Everest, joining the Mile High Club is high on many people’s list of things to do before they die.  Unfortunately, it is much easier to scale the highest mountain in the world than to get some whoopee on today’s cramped and security paranoid airlines. 

Thankfully, capitalism always finds a way to give the people what they want-for a price, of course.  Enter Love Air, a Canadian based charter company who has stepped up to help the less fortunate cross one more item off their life-long list.  Like a cheap hotel, you can charter one of the company’s Cessnas at an hourly (but not-so-cheap) rate of $350.  Equipped with a private bedroom, the plane will soar above the mountains of Whistler for as long as it takes to accomplish your goal.  No word whether flying into turbulence costs extra. 

The website, www.loveair.ca doesn’t seem to be working right now (bad timing for Valentine’s Day) but the contact information is as follows.  E-mail: milehighclub@loveair.ca, Phone: 604 935 8030.  If this doesn’t work out for you, you can click here to check out a few American operators doing their part to make flying fun again. 

Ever wonder what happens to the knives, box cutters, cans of mace, and other random objects clueless travelers neglect to remove from their baggage before passing through airport security?  Well, we all know it gets confiscated.  But what happens after that?  What happens to all those boxes of pointy objects and possible weapons?

Well, in America, the booty is turned around and sold for profit, naturally.

A USA Today article by Gary Stoller tracks the fascinating emerging market of material confiscated from airports. 

Travelers have surrendered more than 30 million objects annually since 9/11.  Local state governments assume ownership of these items first, and can either sell them or turn them over to a third party company, Science Application International, who has signed a $17 million contract with the federal government to dispose of the items. 

Many state governments, recognizing the cash windfall this booty can represent, go into business themselves.  The state of Pennsylvania, for example, earned $17,000 last December selling such knickknacks, mostly on eBay.  Their most successful sale was a box of 500 Swiss Army knives for $595.  Maryland, on the other hand, randomly stuffs 50-pound boxes full of contraband and then sells them, unopened, for $50.

It would be nice if the government department responsible for confiscating the items, the U.S. Transportation Security Administration, were also the ones responsible for selling them.  Profits could then offset rising security costs, and hopefully reduce those bothersome security fees tacked on to plane tickets these days.  Unfortunately, the TSA is prohibited from doing so.  I suppose this makes sense.  Can you imagine the items they would start declaring dangerous and begin confiscating otherwise?

We’ve all been there before.  

You’re single, flying solo and waiting to board your plane when suddenly your eyes alight upon the most amazingly beautiful person you’ve ever seen in your life.  And, she’s boarding your plane!

“Oh please, please, please let this person sit next to me,” you pray.  It’s a four hour flight: a perfect amount of time to woo him/her over with your effervescent charm (or, more likely in my case, to make a complete ass of yourself). 

Unfortunately, the odds of sitting next to that one person aren’t very high on a 200 person flight.  Indeed, the chances are better that you will be stuck next to some malodorous leviathan with irritable bowel syndrome. Or worse, suffer the cruel irony of being on the wrong side of a captive date when the sauced-up player sitting next to you simply won’t shut up.

But now, there is a chance to take control of your fate.  A cheesily named internet dating company, AirTroductions, now offers the opportunity to check the availability of singles on your flight before departure and arrange to sit next to them.  Of course, both parties have to be signed up on the site for it to work.  And there is no feigning an emergency phone call from a friend needing immediate aid if the date goes sour.  You’re stuck with them for the duration of the flight. 

I suppose the poor man’s alternative is to fly Southwest Airlines.  With no assigned seating, the amorously aggressive can push and shove their way into whichever prime real estate the pheromones pull them towards.  In fact, the airline actually issues press releases touting the love connections made on their flights as a result of their seatless policy.

No word yet, however, on joining the Mile High Club.