Looking back at ’08 – 5 things we gained this year

by Scott Carmichael on

Welcome to part 2 of my “looking back at ’08” segment. In part 1, I listed 5 things we lost in 2008, and in this article I will list 5 things we gained. While you reminisce about 2008, why not check out my list of 10 New Years resolutions that could help make 2009 a much better travel year!

There is no denying that 2008 will take up a pretty decent chunk of history books in years to come. Between the Chinese Olympics and the total destruction of our economic civilization, I’d say it’s been a pretty interesting year. Oh, and we also elected our first African American president. Awesome stuff. Of course, not much of this means much to us travelers, so here are 5 things we gained in ’08:

Internet in the air

I’m a geek, so I have listed this one first. Needless to say this is also the one that excited me the most in 2008.

Internet in the skies has long been a something airline passengers have wished for. The first glimpse of its potential came from Boeing back in 2004, but like many new technologies, this one failed pretty quickly.

In 2006, United Airlines tried to breathe new life into the seatback Verizon Airfone handsets, by offering some very basic online access. Needless to say, that one did not last long either. For some reason, people were not willing to pay $10 for instant messaging and 5 pages of news clippings.

Then, out of the ashes of the Verizon Airfone infrastructure came Aircell. This company purchased the rights to some of the airwaves used by the old Verizon system, and began offering high speed Internet access on American Airlines.

The first flight to take to the skies with the Aircell Gogo inflight Internet service was an American Airlines plane on August 20th 2008. But before passengers were able to download their emails in the air, a lot of other milestones had to be reached. I’ll take a closer look at what went on behind the scenes in a separate article.

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Relaxed TSA rules for laptop computers at the checkpoint

Things just kept getting better for us in 2008 at the security checkpoint. After years of harassing us, removing our bottles of water, and treating us like terrorists for carrying a nail clipper, the TSA decided it could put a smile on our faces by allowing certain kinds of laptop bags to pass through the security checkpoint without having to remove our laptops from the bag.

In all, it probably saves no more than 20 seconds, but every second counts at the airport, especially when it involves doing what you can to get as far away from the checkpoint as possible.

We entered 2008 with zero TSA friendly laptop bags, and we’ll be bidding it farewell with over 30 different designs, many of which are listed here.

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More fees and surcharges

Honestly, I wish this list could contain only happy things. Sadly the year has been pretty rough on the airlines, and when things get rough, they take it out on us.

Fees are what the airlines use to make money, because ticket sales alone apparently don’t work. Clearly someone took a close look at the movie theater business and decided that the expensive popcorn trick would work just fine in the aviation industry.

The worst offender this year was US Airways, but almost every major airline introduced at least one or two new ways to make some money.

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New runways

While some airports are still stuck with just a single runway, others can’t get enough of them to keep things flowing.

New tarmac was opened this year at Dulles, Seattle and Chicago. The Dulles runway was their first new one since 1946, and is expected to handle over 100,000 flights a year.

Of course, Chicago’s O’Hare airport was probably the one most in need of a new runway, as they had been operating under special flow control restrictions for several years due to congestion.

The new runway in Chicago is part of a much larger “masterplan” to expand the airport, which includes a new ATC tower and terminal renovations.

In other good news, those awful people movers at Dulles are scheduled to be scrapped later next year!

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New airlines, new routes and new mergers

It sucks to be a legacy carrier. You are doing everything you can to keep your fleet in the sky, and newcomers like Virgin America and OpenSkies pop up, acting like they own the place.

The thing is, many people are so fed up with the state of air travel, that these new carriers are a very welcome addition. Why fly the “friendly skies”, when you can fly an airline that actually is friendly?

In 2008, JetBlue started flying Chicago to Boston, Virgin America added 6 new routes, including New York to Vegas and OpenSkies (a British Airways subsidiary) started flights from New York to Paris and Amsterdam.

And finally, in the “if you can’t beat em, buy em” department; Delta airlines purchased Northwest airlines bringing 2 of the more decent airlines in the skies together as one. One thing is for sure; 2009 is going to be a bumpy ride for many airlines.

Jet circles Zamboanga airport waiting for missing air traffic controllers

by Scott Carmichael on

Unlike our very own Kent Wien, I never trained to be a pilot, but even without those years of training, I can’t imagine it is very comforting to get close to your destination airport and find an unstaffed air traffic control tower.

This is exactly what happened when a jet carrying 156 passengers arrived in the airspace of Zamboanga airport in the Philippines, after a flight from the nation’s capital.

Instead of hearing the familiar commands from the tower telling them they were cleared to land, the Philippine Airlines flight crew heard nothing. It took 30 minutes of circling around the airport for someone to finally make their way to the tower and permit the jet to land.

Of the 5 controllers who were supposed to be on duty that morning, 2 were missing, 2 were late and one was on an approved day off, but their approval note did not make it to the airport administrator. Talk about a total breakdown of communications.

The excuse the remaining 4 controllers presented was that public transport was hard to find the day after Christmas, but officials say the controllers may still have been a little too much in “party mode”. I’m sure that is comforting to hear if you were in the air around Zamboanga that morning.

The newspaper article claims the controllers were fired, but Philippine officials merely say the 5 are currently suspended pending an investigation.

(Via: Sydney Morning Herald)

Other tales from the skies
Amazing and insane stories from a real-life flight attendant and co-pilot

Most Annoying Airline Passengers

by Annie Scott on

The holidays are a hard time to travel, and Lemondrop has compiled a gallery of the people who make it even harder.

“The Most Annoying Airline Passengers Ever” include people who stop in the aisle while you’re boarding to rearrange the bag they’re stowing, strangers who talk too much, and everyone in first class.

While they don’t mention my personal nemeses (the people who can’t keep their elbow and/or various other body parts on their side of the arm rest) the list is pretty darn good, and the pictures are fun, too. Special appearance by Samuel L. Jackson in his Snakes on a Plane role.

[via Lemondrop]

American women found with $471,000 dollars at airport in Jamaica

by Jamie Rhein on

When the officials at the airport in Jamaica found $471,000 on two American women a couple days ago, they took it. See, you’re only allowed to have $10,000 which I would think is ample enough for a rip roaring good time in Jamaica.

So far, according to this AP article, there’s no news on exactly why the women had so much cash. I’m wondering if they cashed out their mutual funds while they had any money left and were hoping to get their hands on some beachfront property. I’ve certainly thought about where I might live in my golden years if the economy continues to head south. Of course, with the money I’ve squirreled away, I might be looking at a shack made of driftwood.

I’m also curious about how much room the money took up in a carry-on? Was the space bigger than the banana plants that were found in the woman’s underwear at the airport in New Zealand a little while back? Also, were they allowed to keep $10,000 each? I doubt that–at least not yet. If not, what are they doing for money in the meantime? Maybe they’re gathering driftwood for a cozy shack.

I bet they’re kicking themselves for whatever they did that got themselves caught.

The future at the airport involves your phone, fingers and eyes

by Scott Carmichael on

The year is 2016, you wake on time and make your way to the airport in your battery powered car. At the UnitedDeltaContinental airlines desk you wave your phone in front of the check-in kiosk and a green light indicates that you are cleared to proceed to the security checkpoint.

At the checkpoint, an agent waves his rfid reader tag in front of the wallet in your pocket, and you stick your hand in a biometric ID reader. The agent stares at a hidden display for a few seconds and allows you to walk through the full body scanner. As you pass through the device, you think back to the days when you had to place your bags on that stupid conveyor belt, and how it always delayed getting to the gate on time.

At the gate, you connect your iPhone 5G with the gate information system, and you instantly receive a message about your upgrade request, sadly you’ll be stuck in coach again for this flight.

Boarding is delayed 20 minutes, once it begins, your phone begins to vibrate that your boarding group is allowed to get on the plane. At the gate, you stare into the airline iris scanner, and the gate attendant allows you to board.

A lot of what I just wrote sounds very much like science fiction, but the idea behind it is based upon developments being made in the world of aviation technology. Airlines and airports have long been very outdated places, and innovation meant investing in new equipment, which is something airlines hate doing.
Mobile boarding passes

The “swipe to board” mobile phone boarding pass may not be here just yet, but the foundations for this kind of technology are already in place. Our very own Grant Martin was one of the first people to post a real life review of using an iPhone instead of a paper boarding pass, and wrote about his experiences here.

The idea of using your phone as a boarding pass is nothing new, but now more and more phones are being sold with large high-resolution displays, airlines are beginning trials that will allow you a true paper-free experience. There are even some phones out there with the ability to “swipe and read”, like a system being offered on some Nokia phones called “Near Field Communications“

My prediction? We’ll be seeing more airlines introduce trials of mobile phone boarding passes in 2009, and by 2011 all airlines will have the equipment in place to let you board using a bar code image on your phone display.

TSA/immigration biometric ID readers

In an ideal world (in the minds of the Department of Homeland Security), we’ll all be fingerprinted, and will have our personal information stored in a massive government database.

The first steps are already being taken at the immigration checkpoint where visitors to the country are fingerprinted. The next step beings early next year, when US Permanent Residents get fingerprinted when they return to the US.

As the fingerprint database begins to grow, it probably won’t be too long until someone floats the idea (again) of a national ID with fingerprint information.

Some airports already have government backed biometric systems in place; Amsterdam Schiphol introduced the Privium system back in 2001 and London airports have been offering passengers the ability to bypass the immigration desk with their IRIS system since 2006.

The US “INSPASS” biometric immigration system was in place as early as 1993, but was abandoned in 2002. The foundations of INSPASS are now being used for border crossings between the US and Canada in the NEXUS system.

My prediction? A nationwide US biometric database won’t happen for at least 10 more years. Privacy is something far too important to allow technology to intervene with, especially when the government has a poor track record of implementing these new projects. I do forsee larger projects by the private sector allowing travelers to pass the checkpoint faster. Clear already does biometric authentication at the airport, but only at a limited number of cities.

Security checkpoint full body scanners

The full body scanner is not new, but it is needless to say that the concept of a full body x-ray doesn’t sit too well with many people. The scanners are currently being tested at 10 different US airports, but the trial only involves offering the scanner as an alternative to a pat down in a secondary security search.

The obvious question is whether the scanner can see “everything”, and the answer is yes – the full body scanner will see all your “parts”, the TSA tries to alleviate passenger concerns by moving the screener away from the machine, hidden away in a dark room. Your face is also blurred on the display, so there is no risk of TSA agents pointing at you while giggling like little school girls.

Sadly, the truth is that the full body scanner is probably here to stay, and will eventually become the way all passengers are scanned at the airport. There is no denying that the ability to see right through you and your clothes is the most effective way to scan for weapons or other unwanted items at the airport. Whether this technology will also involve you walking through with your bags is just a matter of time.

My prediction? By 2012 we’ll have full body scanners at some of the major airports in the country, and by 2015 all airports will be scanning passengers with these devices.

Gate technology improvements

A large number of passengers at the airport already walk around with a Bluetooth enabled phone in their pocket, so when you mix that technology with tracking software, you end up with something that can tell where you are, or more importantly where you are when you should be at the gate getting on your flight.

Copenhagen airport has a system in place that uses this technology to track passengers who voluntarily participate in the program.

Imagine a world where the airport announcement doesn’t just ask Mr.Jones to proceed to gate 12, but also tells him to get the hell out of the duty free store and run, because it is a 9 minute walk from where he currently is.

My prediction? Within the next couple of years, we’ll see a true “real time” boarding announcement system that can communicate with your mobile phone. It may be as simple as an email telling you to hurry up, but I have no doubts that airlines will do everything they can to speed up the boarding process, and try to get a better idea of where passengers are when they should be at the gate.