Flight attendant pleads guilty to bomb hoax

by Tom Johansmeyer on

It was a bad week for Australians, it seems. A naval officer was physically restrained on a flight to London. Not too long after, Matt Carney, a flight attendant from Melbourne, was sentenced to 18 months in jail in England. It was his own fault: he left not one but two(!) notes on a plane to London, “warning” of a bomb. Of course, he was working the flight.

The 23-year-old soon-to-be-former flight attendant is from Melbourne, but he’ll have a new home for a while. As soon as his Emirates Boeing 777 landed at Gatwick Airport, Carney was arrested. No explosives were discovered. One note was found in the lav, the other in the flight attendant’s luggage.

The note was “discovered” when Carney found wires in the lav. Though they weren’t connected to anything, the crew monitored this smallest of spaces. A passenger later found the note, which included: “We have the Taliban to thank for this.”

In pleading guilty to making a hoax threat (he denied endangering the safety of an aircraft), Carney said through his lawyer that he was stressed and tired. If Dubai to London wore him out, let’s see how he handles 18 months in the slammer.

Galley Gossip: Laviators unite! (mile high headshots)

by Heather Poole on

Recently I wrote a post, the hottest trend on the airplane since the mile high club, about something disturbing, yet quite intriguing, that was taking place not just on the airplane, but behind the locked lavatory door at 35,000 feet. Passengers, and I’m talking all kinds of passengers, have been photographing themselves in the bathroom. Alone. Doing what, I don’t know. But they look like they’re just standing there. And I wanted to do it, too.

I had written, “Oh you better believe I’ll be taking my own self portrait in the lav on my next flight to New York on Wednesday. Until then, check out these interesting shots.” And then I added a photo gallery I’d put together of passengers I’d found on Flickr.com standing in the lav, camera in hand.

One Gadling reader responded, “Heather, if you do photograph yourself in the lav, please spare us the picture! I think people will lose any respect they have for you.”

Sounds to me like someone needs to lighten up, and they can start by grabbing their camera and joining the club – the laviators club. I did! Yep, that’s me up there in the photo looking not so hot on a flight from Los Angeles to New York. Hey, it was late and I was tired. But I just had to do it. Even though my seat mate did look at me a little funny after he caught me trying to sneak my camera into the front pocket of my pants.

The first thing I did when I got home was download the photo, that photo right up there, onto my personal blog. I had a good laugh and I honestly thought that would be that, end of story. But a few days later I got an email with a photo attached from a Gadling reader. “This one’s for you,” Nate wrote, and that’s all he wrote, and it cracked me up!

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The very next day I got another one! Jeff wrote, “I made you a picture.” I clicked the link and thought to myself, Oh. My. God. What have I started?

Next to join the club was one of my favorite flight attendants, Sodwee, also known as Airboy. He works for Emirates. He wrote, “Heather, I was thinking of you from CDG to DBX.”

Airboy wasn’t the only one thinking about me in the lav. Leesa wrote, “My daughter and I flew to LA last week and thought you might want some lav pictures for your collection.”

Well Leesa and her daughter were right! Not only do I have an interesting collection of mile high headshots from readers like you, I want more, more, MORE! So next time you’re on a flight don’t forget to take your camera and make sure to think of me – in the lav. Please, I beg you, join the club – the laviators club. And I’ll add your photo to the gallery above. Hmm…I wonder if Karen Walrond, our own resident photogapher, can give us a few tips?

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Showering at 43,000 feet

by Annie Scott on


When we heard that you can shower on the Emirates A380, we were fascinated. The Sydney Morning Herald just published a first-hand account of the showers.

Never before has a commercial airplane bathroom been equipped with a shower, and we’re okay with that. I mean, what, are we gonna share a communal shower with all the sketchy looking people in coach? With us? This isn’t a hostel in Berlin!

The SMH reporter Sarah Maguire headed into the “shower spa” and chose from the lotions and potions on display, stripped naked, and “got to it” — but the door wouldn’t shut and the water wouldn’t turn on, so she stepped out in a towel to ask for assistance. Embarrassing!

She was directed to try the other shower spa down the way, and had to sheepishly traipse through the “first class social area” half-naked to get there. This lead her to imagine even worse nightmares, like sliding down the emergency chute wet in a towel.

Maguire bravely made it to the other side, and said this of the shower spa:

“… it was warm and lovely and had commendable pressure. While the time limit is five minutes, you can spend 30 minutes in the bathroom, which is stocked with Timeless Spa products developed for Emirates by the German brand Babor. Two dedicated staff also service the shower area.”

The Emirates A380 flight from Sydney to Auckland is approximately three hours and first class, shower-eligible seats start at $2,028 Australian. The shower would probably be more useful on a longer flight, but we have to say, that’s pretty affordable for this novel luxury! Thrillseekers, add this to your list.

[via Sydney Morning Herald]

Newest airline fee racket – oxygen!

by Scott Carmichael on

Not content with charging you for water and checked bags, some airlines have discovered the lucrative business of charging for oxygen.

Not to worry, most passengers won’t run out of oxygen mid-flight when they don’t pay, the fees are being charged for those passengers that require oxygen for medical reasons.

One passenger had already booked $3,500 in tickets with Emirates when the airline notified her that she’d have to pay an additional $4,000 for a single oxygen canister for her husband who suffers from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.

Once she created some bad PR for the airline, they gave in, and offered to provide the oxygen for a “mere” $200, but by then she had already rebooked on a different airline.

All is not lost though, several airlines, including British Airways, Virgin and Cathay Pacific provide free oxygen canisters to any passengers that require it for medical reasons. Emirates recently joined that lineup when they announced they too would cease charging for air.

That still leaves plenty of other airlines who feel they can get away with charging between $75 and $350 for medical oxygen. In addition to these unfair charges, most airlines also ban passengers from carrying their own oxygen supplies, citing safety concerns.

One UK charity has already spent just under $70,000 in grants to provide its members with oxygen for their vacation flights.

Airbus wins bet, makes president less of a loser

by Tom Johansmeyer on

When your reputation is so bad that you have to make a bet that you’ll meet production targets, as Airbus President Tom Enders did, you need to realize that your victory would be break-even for anyone else. The man with the poor track record scored a bottle of champagne by delivering the fourth of four planes to Emirates Airline on time. The total order is for 58, which means Airbus has plenty of work ahead of it.

Hell, he even had two days of wiggle room. If the champagne is as good as his reputation, Enders will endure an incredibly sweet victory.

Before we give Airbus too much respect, his announcement of champagne success was accompanied with a warning that the fifth plane, due by the end of March, will not be ready until mid-April. Of course, this will occur despite the fact that the on-time delivery “gives us a good basis to further ramp-up our production in 2009.” Emirates president Tim Clark leaked this tidbit to Reuters.

Enders made the bet with the media at a press conference in September because he’s missed his deadlines four times in three years. And, we all know that reporters are perpetually broke … they only make bets they’re likely to win. This says so much about Airbus and its leader.

Already, he’s screwed up 2009. Airbus parent EADS confessed that it will miss its objective of 21 A380s this year. This, apparently, is how one treats its largest customer.

[Via Reuters via USA Today]