The World’s Worst Airport Job

by Grant Martin on

My old friend Lauri, who happens to be a pilot for Finnair, just snapped a photo of what might just be the worst possible job in any airport in the world: runway monitor. Indira Gandhi International Airport is the largest airport in India and a critical hub for scores of airlines passing through the Asian continent. With so much traffic passing through its three runways, debris is bound to collect, so the pathways have to be carefully monitored; as Air France 4590 illustrated, even a small strip of metal can be catastrophic for a passing aircraft.

In New Delhi, the best way to monitor runways seems to be to station someone out on the field. The poor guy in the photo above has only a tiny shanty to protect him from the 104°F (40°C) heat, constant noise and ubiquitous jet fumes. And who knows where the bathroom is.

The only bright side? He’s probably got some great airplane photos for his airliners.net photo page.

Sleeping Man Found On Luggage Belt In Rome Airport

by Jessica Festa on

Airport security certainly sees some unusual items going through baggage screenings; however, the TSA at Rome’s Fiumicino Airport were recently shocked when the outline and internal organs of a sleeping man popped up on their X-Ray machine.

According to The Guardian, a 36-year-old Norwegian tourist was found fast asleep on the baggage conveyor belt in Terminal 3. He had spent about 25 minutes riding around, blissfully unaware of where he was. Unfortunately, waking up was not so pleasant as he is now facing charges for the unauthorized ride.

When found, the man appeared to have been drinking heavily. After dumping his bags on the luggage belt at an unoccupied check-in point, he had lay down and fallen asleep on the main belt. Thankfully, police say his impromptu journey was not a security risk.

“There is a security system – a sort of roll-up blind – which can only be opened by the member of staff who loads the baggage,” a police officer told Italian newspaper La Repubblica. “[The Norwegian] could have carried on going round the main belt but he could never have ended up in sensitive areas of the airport.”

[Image via MadEmoiselle Sugar]

5 Reasons To Love Airports

by Rachel Friedman on

Perpetually delayed flights, bad food and even worse movies, the depressing spectacle of young and old shuffling around shoeless and beltless after enduring security checks ranging from the mildly inconvenient (though possibly infertility-inducing) to the humiliatingly invasive. Long gone are the travel glory days when dapper pilots strode through the airport – three sexy stewardesses on each arm. For many, plane travel has lost its glamour – if it ever actually had any to begin with.

Even though I deeply resent checked baggage fees and rapidly shrinking legroom, there is still a part of the flying experience I do love – or rather a place: the airport. Here’s why you should, too.

You Can Feel it All
At the airport you encounter the happiness of reunions and sadness of goodbyes, the anxiety of nervous travelers and excitement of those off on great and small adventures. Every imaginable emotion is soaring around like aircraft on an overpopulated flight route and it’s all happening in this very special place where feelings are trapped with no way out – just like you are. Instead of texting every person you’ve ever met in order to pass the time, board this emotional rollercoaster and let it take you for a heartwarming (or heartbreaking) spin. Or just watch the movie “Love, Actually.” Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone you cried.It’s People Watching Heaven
I like to make up stories about the people I see at the airport. Business casual guy told his wife he’s headed to a conference in Des Moines but really is off to visit his mistress. The bedraggled looking couple with three ankle-biters in tow is moving to Florida because Manhattan is no place to raise a family. Being a writer at an airport means having an entire cast of characters spontaneously appear before you, many of whom are having intimate cellphone conversations that are easy to eavesdrop on. Even if you’re not inclined towards making up plot lines for complete strangers there is a whole world of interesting people watching to be done. I sometimes wonder, for instance, what observing aliens would think of those folks who strap their neck pillows on for their entire airport stay like some sort of cult identifiable only by plush neck goiters.

You Can’t Do Anything but Wait
Rules dictate that you must get to the airport with plenty of time to spare. And then you have nothing to do but wait around and, well, do nothing. This is a beautiful thing. The Internet has somewhat ruined this little slice of leisure time for us (way to go, Internet, you’ve done it again) but I still subscribe to the “all I can do at the airport is be at the airport” mentality. I browse intellectual magazine then buy trashy ones I’ll throw out like contraband before leaving. I wander the stores checking out overpriced knick-knacks, silently judging the people who buy them, and then inevitably convincing myself it’s totally acceptable to purchase yet another $5 Hawaii magnet because I’m obviously buying it ironically. It’s a tiny wonderland of guilty pleasures, this magical airport place.

You’re On a Trip
Maybe this is obvious, but being in an airport means you are going somewhere. Do you know how lucky you are? Some people never go anywhere and others only get to go to Wichita, Kansas, to visit relatives and they have to go by bus and it’s one of those buses where the drunken guy in the back won’t stop singing the chorus to “Sweet Home Alabama.” (No offense to Wichita or drunkards or Lynyrd Skynyrd.) But, if you’re lucky, you’re headed somewhere awesome to have an adventure. The airport is your first stop on this journey. Get excited! Invoke a little kid you who just got his first pair of wings and try not to think about the fact that they probably charge for those little pins now because airlines are broke and miserly.

It’s 5 O’clock Somewhere
The airport is a kind of a Shakespearean green world where the everyday rules of life no longer apply. You are therefore free to drink a Heineken at 9 a.m. because you’ve been up since 4 a.m. in another time zone and thus by some convoluted mathematical formula it’s actually early evening in your body. Lest you dismiss this as the ravings of an alcoholic airportophile, the same premise applies to food as well. You can eat honey mustard and onion pretzels for breakfast and not worry about bad breath because there are so many unpleasant smells on a plane no one will know it’s you anyways. You can drink coffee at midnight because who cares when you’re so jet-lagged your circadian rhythm got left somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. It’s a gastronomical free-for-all and you’ve got a VIP ticket.

Self-Boarding Gates Debut At Las Vegas Airport

by Grant Martin on

The process from booking to flying has been increasingly streamlined as airlines cut costs and invest in infrastructure. Ticketing, baggage drop-off, seat selection and a variety of other services have all been simplified, often to the point where there are only a few staff members handling a massive check-in line.

Where airline staff is still critical is at the boarding gate, where upgrades, ticket changes, passenger loading and a variety of other issues are still handled. To handle that dynamic environment, anywhere between one and a handful of airline agents is necessary for operation.

If the Swiss group Kaba has its way though, those staff members may start to disappear. The company has designed an automated check-in device that scans your boarding pass and allows passage from the terminal to the aircraft – all without interfacing with an agent. It’s a tool that could speed up the boarding process as well as cut down on costly staff necessary at the gate.

Already in limited operation in Europe, Kaba’s first automatic gate is now operating at the MaCarran airport in Las Vegas, and if the trial is successful then distribution will expand.

And what happens when you bring a mobile boarding pass to the gate or the system doesn’t automatically process your ticket? At this point, there will still be staff on hand to manually process your boarding. But if this pilot program is successful, you can expect a lot fewer staff to help in the future.

VietJet Air Fined For Having Bikini-Clad Dancers Onboard

by McLean Robbins on




The Vietnam-based VietJet Air has been fined by the Civil Aviation Administration after allowing bikini-clad models to perform a Hawaiian Dance Show while passengers watched and recorded, the New York Daily News reported.

The budget airline hired models to walk the aisles of the plane and hand out teddy bears to passengers en route to Nha Trang, a popular tourist destination.

The models were competing for a beauty pageant called “Miss Ngoi Sao,” according to local reports, and were clad only in tiny red bikinis.

The Daily News reports that the airline was fined 20 million Vietnamese dong, about $1,000 USD.

Thoughts? Would this fly in the U.S.?