Your bag’s perspective from Atlanta to New York

Ever wonder what happens to your bag after you send it down the tunnel behind the gate agent at the airport? I was always under the impression that it was handled by a series of Oompa-Loompas who gently carry your bags from point A to point B on their heads, quietly singing the song of the baggage handler as glitter falls from the sky.

Apparently that’s not the case. The kind folks over at Delta Air Lines just released a video detailing a bag’s journey through the inner workings of Atlanta (ATL) and then over to New York City. To capture the film they strapped six cameras onto a package and sent it through the system, from the conveyor belts to the baggage trucks to the belly of the plane. Though the footage is ultimately an ad for their baggage tracking app, it’s still an interesting perspective.

You Fancy, Huh? Delta lures top travelers with Porsche transport program

If you’re a Delta Diamond member heading into ATL, you just might have a surprise waiting for you on the runway. Delta’s being secretive about the details, but they’re piloting a new program for their HVCs (High Value Customers), using a fleet of six Porsche vehicles to transport fliers to far-flung terminals or even to their cars.

Here’s how it works – you’ll get off the plane and find a Delta rep waiting with a sign, where you’ll be escorted to the car and whisked away to your destination – sometimes right off the jetway.
Why Porsche? The luxe car brand is moving their North American headquarters to a new location just adjacent to the terminal, and of course Delta’s hub is in Atlanta.

According to The Ticket Atlanta, Delta’s only comment has been on the Flier Talk Boards to state that the cars are part of their partnership with Porsche, they didn’t pay for the cars, and that the cars are for customers only – not executives.

What do you think? Smart move by Delta or a catering to the 1%?

[Flickr via SOCIALisBetter]

Travel in the southern United States for free with Megabus

Who doesn’t love free travel? With a new hub in Atlanta, Georgia, Megabus is giving away 10,000 free seats to travelers using their new routes during trips taking place November 16 to December 16, 2011. The eleven cities included in the new route leaving from Atlanta include:

  • Birmingham, Alabama
  • Mobile, Alabama
  • Montgomery, Alabama
  • Charlotte, North Carolina
  • Chattanooga, Tennessee
  • Knoxville, Tennessee
  • Memphis, Tennessee
  • Nashville, Tennessee
  • Gainesville, Florida
  • Jacksonville, Florida
  • Orlando, Florida

To take advantage of the offer, just enter the promo code ATL10K when reserving your seat online.

Cuba: Nine US cities cleared for charter flights

Nine US airports have been approved for charter flights to Cuba, Reuters reported this morning. The Cuban travel agency Havanatur Celimar made the announcement on Friday.

The US government forbids commercial flights between the United States and Cuba, so all air travel between the two countries has to proceed on charter planes. The Obama Administration has already removed all restrictions on travel to Cuba by Cuban-Americans and eased the guidelines for travel to Cuba by US citizens more generally.

The general changes already enacted by the administration include an easing of restrictions on religious, academic, and professional travel and the return of people-to-people educational exchanges, which were outlawed by the Bush Administration.

The lucky nine cities approved by Havanatur Celimar: Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas, Fort Lauderdale, Houston, New Orleans, San Juan, and Tampa. Charter flights to and from Cuba already take off and land from Los Angeles, Miami, and New York.

[Image: Alex Robertson Textor]

Atlanta, an Olympic City 15 Years Later


Fifteen years have passed since Muhammad Ali lit the Olympic torch, Kerri Strug landed her heroic single-footed vault and Eric Robert Rudolph detonated a pipe bomb in downtown Atlanta, during the 100th anniversary of the modern Olympic Games. Well-considered development for the event has since transformed the city, which continues to draw new residents, start-up businesses and flights to Hartsfield-Jackson, the world’s busiest airport since 1998. In the last fifteen years, Atlanta has become the south’s booming, sprawling capital and an example of what urban development can achieve–and not achieve–over the long term.

%Gallery-129586%

The most gleaming example of the power of Atlanta is the Georgia Aquarium, the world’s largest, located in downtown, hundreds of miles from the ocean. Built at a cost of roughly $300 million, its main tank holds 6.3 million gallons, stocked with whale sharks, manta rays, reef sharks, tiger sharks, surgeonfish, jacks, grouper, snapper, sawfish and something called a wobbegong. Elsewhere are penguin exhibits, an otter enclosure, a Beluga whale tank and touch pools, where kids squeal as they pet live rays and bonnethead sharks. According to its official FAQ, fishing poles are not allowed inside the aquarium.

Built downtown, the aquarium has drawn more than 10 million visitors since its opening in 2005, just north of Centennial Park, the epicenter of the games. In its orbit are other development projects, including Turner Field, the former Olympic Stadium converted for baseball after the games and now home to the Atlanta Braves. Centennial Park isn’t simply a monument to games gone by: the weekend I visited, the National Black Art Festival was taking place in the park and selling out nearby hotels.

In Midtown, arts are an ever-growing draw, starting with the always-expanding High Museum of Art, which doubled in size in 2002 when starchitect Renzo Piano added three buildings, including one with a cheese grater roof that diffuses natural light into the contemporary galleries. (A reflective Anish Kapoor sculpture reminiscent of his Cloud Gate in Chicago was a visitor favorite on the day I visited.)

Not long ago, The Wall Street Journal reported,

The central neighborhood of Midtown was long desolate and undesirable, despite being home to the High Museum of Art and the Fox Theater. Today, it’s overflowing with new condo developments. … In 2007, the nearby Alliance Theatre cemented its place as a performing arts hotspot with a regional Tony Award. At night, new clubs offer first-listens of what could become the next big hip-hop track.

In Buckhead, first-time visitors–like me–are stunned by the scale of development; it’s a city within a city. Young people from across the south flock here, in part for the rowdy bar scene but also for the economic opportunities–and the fact that all the other 20-somethings seem to be moving here. There are chain restaurants and stores on seemingly every corner, but some local entrepreneurs are giving it a go, with shops and restaurants and even, yes, food trucks. On my visit, Taqueria Tsunami hadn’t yet opened to serve its “Pacific Rim tacos,” much to my disappointment.

Back in downtown, progress continues. The Federal Transit Administration will grant the city $47 million in federal money for a downtown streetcar project, on which construction should start imminently. Secretary Ray LaHood says the new circulator, connecting Centennial Park and the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site, will employ nearly 1,000 people and drive economic growth downtown. And at the historic site on Auburn Avenue, preserving King’s boyhood home and neighborhood? The city is using TARP money to make capital improvements.

Seems the only thing that needs an update is Varsity, the much loved but well past its prime drive-in that slings greasy burgers overlooking the always-jammed I-85. Atlanta could do something about the gridlocked traffic, too, but people keep moving here, 15 years after the city’s global coming out party.