Category Archives: Opinion

Six Years of Flight Wisdom

From the Editor When I first started with Flight Wisdom, we had a very different conception of what it would be. At the end of this month, we celebrate our six year anniversary. The first post was dated July 29, 2006. We started out wanting to do an information site with a blog attached, which…

Rethinking Electronics in Flight or What’s Airplane Mode?

[caption id="attachment_1703" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Interior of Virgin America A320"][/caption] A few weeks ago, we commented on the ban on portable electronics. The truth is, in terms of the FAA’s stated rationale, there is little evidence presented that indicates the majority of electronics have any effect on aircraft systems. But, the other reason, the one not…

Ron Paul Decries TSA Police State, White House Defends TSA

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Image by Getty Images via @daylife"][/caption] After his son, Senator Rand Paul, was detained and denied boarding for refusing an invasive pat-down, Representative Ron Paul issued a sharply-worded statement promising to eliminate the TSA should he be elected President “The police state in this country is growing out of control,” the…

Are Unions Really What’s Wrong With U.S. Airlines? Brad Hall Thinks So(He’s Very Wrong)

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Image by Getty Images via @daylife"][/caption] Brad Hall “designs systems for improving workforce performance”. Brad Hall has a PhD industrial-organizational psychology.  Brad Hall knows that U.S airlines have awful customer service. And Brad Hall knows why- unions. It is a foregone conclusion for Dr. Hall; one he is unwilling to let…

Opinion: How Some People Ruin it For the Rest of Us

Earlier today, we opened up a blog entry by noted travel writer Christopher Elliott, titled “Airline tells hospitalized passenger people pretend to be sick all the time” [caption id="" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Image by Getty Images via @daylife"][/caption] This is a horrible thing for any business to suggest to its customers, airline or not. But people…

Shameless Plug – Like Us on Facebook

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="245" caption="Image via CrunchBase"][/caption] We finally, not long ago, set up a Facebook page. Leave it to us to jump on the Facebook bandwagon after only five years of blogging. Since many people live in Facebook, we figured it was time to distribute our content this way as well as encourage commenting…

Science Be Damned, John Quain’s Gut Tells Him Electronics Are Dangerous During Flight

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="250" caption="Image via CrunchBase"][/caption] Several generations ago, a heretofore unimportant Senator arose brandishing a list which he claimed contained the names of 207 known Communists who had infiltrated the State Department.  Never mind that Senator McCarthy had no such list, that the number changed from day to day.  He knew that State…

Are Airlines At Fault for Letting Terrorists Onboard?

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Image via Wikipedia"][/caption] As we mentioned previously, Theophilius Maranga a lawyer from Fishkill, NY, is suing Delta Airlines and Air France-KLM for ten million dollars in damages for not properly compensating him after they let a man onboard who intended on blowing up the aircraft. Maranga tried to get compensation through…

Happy Holidays from Flight Wisdom

We can’t think of anything more fitting to wish greetings of the Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, Festivus, New Year’s season than a chorus of TSA Agents at LAX singing What a Wonderful World. We’d have embedded this one, but the only version we found on Youtube appeared to have been doctored. Click Here Happy holidays from your…

Does This Make You Pay Attention to Safety Announcements?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXY27Rwg6UQ Cebu Pacific, a low cost carrier out of the Phillipines, has modified its safety dance for the holiday season. The dance, which started last year, has been received as overwhelmingly popular. Heather Poole, author of Cruising Attitude, an upcoming book about her life and work as a flight attendant, tweeted the following: “Seriously why must…

Strip the TSA

When the TSA came into existence, their screeners worewhite. Then, they became Transportation Security Officers(TSOs), and got new blue uniforms. Their embroidered [caption id="" align="alignright" width="250" caption="Image via Wikipedia"][/caption] badges got replaced with metal ones to “represent the continuing evolution of the officers’ role and responsibilities.” At the time when this happened in 2008, we were…

Alec Baldwin vs the Flight Attendant

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=p24WCHJgMTs Unless you’ve been out of touch, you probably heard about Alec Baldwin’s behavior onboard an American Airlines flight. We’ve been thinking about this for a few days now. By most accounts, Alec Baldwin was onboard an American Airlines flight. The Flight Attendants had instructed passengers to discontinue the use of portable electronics. Mr. Baldwin…

Do you want an Airline Experience without Humans?

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Image via Wikipedia"][/caption] It is a sad fact of life that more and more human interaction is being replaced by computers. Or perhaps it isn’t in some cases, where we’d rather not talk to a human being. But Paris’ Orly Airport is experimenting with a virtual boarding agent. They recorded several…

The Case Against Codesharing

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Image via Wikipedia"][/caption] Last week, the Cranky Flier, in an article on CNN entitled “This isn’t the Airline I signed up for”,  covered the issues of codesharing. Namely… People often don’t realize what airline they are actually flying on… We put that in bold letters, because it is a big issue.…

Man Flies with Invalid Boarding Pass – We Question

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Image via Wikipedia"][/caption] We’ve been thinking about the issues with the airport check-in and security process for  a long time. We approved of the government insisting that higher standards be applied to security screening, although we remain unsure if it was necessary for this to be done by government workers. Up…

Why we Like JetBlue Airways

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Image via Wikipedia"][/caption] SmarterTravel.com awarded its 2011 “Best Coach Class Experience” to JetBlue Airways. We may be biased, as JetBlue is big in our part of the country, the Northeastern United States. There are many advantages to JetBlue travel that we wish other airlines would adopt. For example, JetBlue operates A320s…

FAA Adds Controllers after Napping Incidents

The FAA announced it intends to add more air traffic controllers to the midnight shift at 27 airports that are currently staffed by a lone controller. This follows the suspension of controllers at Washington National, Reno, Lubbock, and Seattle for falling asleep on the job. The situation prompted Henry Krakowski, who oversaw the ATC system, to resign over the situation.