Take your shoes off, but keep your feet clean – Airplane tip

by Gadling Staff on

Removing your shoes to pass through security doesn’t mean you have to pick up dirt, germs, and everything else left behind by fellow travelers. In a plastic baggie in an exterior pocket of your carry-on, store a bag of hand wipes along with an old pair of socks, or disposable slip-on booties like hospital workers wear.

Slide those on when you slip your shoes off, and after passing through security, peel off those germy socks or booties and return them to their resealable bag for your return trip, while putting clean feet in your shoes.

Use the hand wipes and you’re good to go — germ-free!

Pilot with fake license flew commercial planes for 13 years – until he was caught

by Scott Carmichael on

A successful 13 year career came to an end today, when Dutch police pulled a 41-year-old pilot from his plane. The pilot was minutes away from departing for Ankara, Turkey on his Corendon airlines flight.

The cops were acting on a tip from Swedish authorities, who discovered that the man was not in possession of a pilots license valid for commercial planes.

He did have a basic license for private planes, but he had falsified his credentials 13 years ago, and had been flying commercial planes ever since.

With over 10,000 hours in the cockpit, the pilot had obviously tricked authorities very well – and 10,000 hours without any safety incidents also means he must have known what he was doing up front.

Thankfully, Corendon airlines had been alerted to the upcoming arrest, and had already arranged for a replacement pilot to take his seat. A lawyer for the airline said the fake pilot would never fly for them again.

Oddly enough, this was the second time he had been caught – Swedish cops arrested him several years ago for the same reason, but when they summoned him, he couldn’t be found, so they just “forgot” about it.

Child directs airplanes from JFK air traffic control tower – FAA not amused

by Scott Carmichael on


Bring your child to work day usually involves showing the little ones how your office looks, and letting them play with the water cooler. At New York JFK Airport, someone took things a little too far by letting a child issue commands to aircraft. In the video above, you can clearly hear the kid, with someone in the background telling him what to say.

Thankfully, the pilots all seem to find it rather funny, and I assume it brightened up their otherwise boring day. Sadly, the FAA doesn’t share their sense of humor, as a full investigation is underway to determine who did what, and why. The FAA had this to say:

” Pending the outcome of our investigation, the employees involved in this incident are not controlling air traffic. This behavior is not acceptable and does not demonstrate the kind of professionalism expected from all FAA employees.“

Even though rules were broken, I doubt airplanes were in any kind of danger during the short burst of entertainment from the tower.

Everything you need to know about buying airfares as cheaply as possible, in 500 words or less.

by George Hobica on

If I could tell you just one thing, it would be this: sign up for free fare alerts. Time and again, I see articles whose main point is to crown one search engine-Kayak, or Travelocity, or Momondo or whatever-as the best bet to find a low fare. But usually, the price differences in these “bake off” comparisons are small potatoes, if they exist at all, because all airfare sites pretty much use the same fare data provided by the airlines. That said, meta search engines such as Kayak and Tripadvisor will do a better job at finding the relatively few fares that the airlines sell only on their own sites.

There is no one “magic bullet” airfare search site! The only sites that perform better on international fares are those selling “consolidator” fares, but these often come with caveats and extra restrictions, such as “miss your flight and you have to buy a whole new ticket” (you get what you pay for).

The big savings come from realizing that airfares can have wild and sudden swings, like stocks on the S&P 500. You may not have time to check them hour-by-hour or day-by-day, but airfare-tracking sites do, and will alert you when a fare goes down, sometimes by hundreds of dollars, either to a level you specify or by a percentage amount.

So sign up, it’s free! Some alert systems require that you first search for a fare before they’ll offer free email alerts; others let you sign up before searching. Here are some sites that offer alerts:TripAdvisor.com
Kayak.com
Yapta.com
Bing.com
Travelocity.com
Orbitz.com
Airfarewatchdog.com

Don’t just sign up for one, because they all work a bit differently. Be aware that most don’t include Southwest Airlines fares or promo code fares (airfarewatchdog.com does, although it tracks far fewer routes than the others listed above).

And do sign up for the airlines’ frequent flyer programs and email alerts. They’ll often send out promo code and airline-site-only fare deals.

Also, if you’re searching on your own, do not forsake online travel agencies! Way too often I hear people exclaim, “I only buy directly from the airline sites.” But what if you can save $100 by flying out on Delta and back on United? Who’s going to tell you this? Delta? United? Not a chance. Travelocity, Orbitz, Cheap Tickets, Expedia and other online travel agencies are going to tell you this.

You already know that being flexible in your travel dates saves money. Problem is, most people are not flexible in their travel dates. Even so, Travelocity, Cheaptickets, and Orbitz have the best flexible date search functions (check out this helpful chart).

Is there a magic day to buy? A lot of sales pop up on Monday night and Tuesday, but the fare you’re looking for could go down at any moment, so if you just search once a week on Tuesday, you’re missing out.

Traveling at the last minute? You usually have two options: pay through the nose, or use Priceline.com or Hotwire.com. Priceline’s name your own price feature is a super way to snag a good last minute fare.

Oops, that was more than 500 words, but just by a bit. One more tip: keep your seatbelt fastened whenever you’re in your seat and you’ll enjoy your fare savings even more.

George Hobica is the founder of Airfarewatchdog™, the most inclusive source of airfare deals that have been researched and verified by experts. Airfarewatchdog compares fares from all airlines and includes the increasing number of airline-site-only and promo code fares.

Want more travel news? Be sure to check out Episode 2 of Gadling’s Travel Talk TV!

Government department in charge of airport security can’t stop losing their own stuff

by Scott Carmichael on

How upset would you be if you lost your laptop computer? How upset do you think your boss would be if your company lost not one, but one thousand of them?

The loss of 1000 computers within a single government department is apparently not much of an issue, because that is how many went missing at the Department of Homeland Security in 2008.

The department is in charge of the TSA as well as Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (the old INS).

During an audit, a total of 1,975 pieces of equipment could not be located, at a total valuation of $7.5 million. Included in the list of missing items are 235 night vision goggles, a $116,000 truck and 13 other vehicles.

The departments claim the number of missing items is perfectly normal and that they are “well within loss rates deemed acceptable by industry for asset accounting“. I’ll be sure to use that excuse next time I lose something.

Remember, these losses are on top of the thousands of items that mysteriously go missing from luggage of passengers entrusting their belongings to the TSA. Shipping your luggage suddenly doesn’t seem like such a bad idea. US Senator Tom Coburn has more about the embarrassing losses on his personal site.