FBI: Man threatened to bomb L.A.-bound jet – USATODAY.com.
Seriously now, what the hell is happening here? There’s been a few of these stories lately. Has air travel really become this stressful?
Busy couple of weeks with travelling, election watching and just general “work is a bitch”’ stuff.
I really hope that I’ve finished the last business trips for 2008. By the calculations over at FlightMemory, I’ve flown 24 times (not counting the flying lessons) and I’ve logged:
This makes 2008 my busiest year yet.
Speaking of flying lessons, the travelling put a real damper on my time so I’ve just cracked the 10 hour threshold which leaves me at least another 10 hours before I can solo and a total of 35 to go until I can go for my license. I also got way out of sync with the groundschool schedule so I restarted the entire course this last Thursday night. Hopefully I can go all the way through this time without a break. Luckily the Brampton Flying Club allows you to take the course as often as you want.
The economy may be tanking but that only means that my company becomes much more aggressive in the pursuit of new business. I then get called on more often to provide product support for presentations and tenders and that’s on top of the day-to-day problems that require my attention. Very tired at the end of the day. Today (Saturday), for instance, I’m working on a system upgrade from home.
I’ve only been to the Toronto Aerospace Museum a couple of times in the last few months so projects are starting to build up. I should be there today but no such luck. Next week for sure.
The historic US elections this week kept me glued to CNN and the net when time permitted. You all know which way I was leaning and I’m still overjoyed at the outcome. Watching the Republican party bring out their knives afterwards has been fun as well.
Now comes the long slide into winter. Lots of things to keep me occupied so I don’t think I’ll be suffering from cabin fever.
I dropped into the Toronto Aerospace Museum today just to see what was going on and to see if any projects had been planned for me while I’ve been travelling. Luckily, I brought my camera.
Today we took possession of a 1956 de Havilland DH87B Hornet Moth that has been purchased from George Neal, a member of the museum.
Mr. Neal (middle) flew his airplane in for the handover and it was truly a special and bittersweet day. Here, he poses with Claude Sherwood (museum CEO, left) and Paul Cabot (curator). The Moth may never fly again as it’s scheduled to go on permanent display. Mr. Neal, at the tender age of 90, sold the aircraft to finance a project where he’s building a Hawker Fury. He’s a member of the Canadian Aviation Hall of Fame (inducted in 1995) and holds the distinction of being one of the first Canadian pilots to be qualified to fly the RCAF Vampire, our first jet fighter. Neal’s testing and demonstrations of aircraft such as the Beaver, the Otter, and the Caribou, allowed them to be successful around the world . He retired in 1983 as Director of Flight Operations of de Havilland Canada.
The day was superb, the winds were light and George performed a perfect landing in a perfect example of this rare airplane.
Although I’m usually lucky enough to get business class when I travel to Europe, domestic travel is always in cattle class. In order to help dull the pain, I pay a fair amount of money every year to for a "Maple Leaf Club" card with Air Canada. This allows me to use the lounge and executive class check in facilities. It’s been a good deal but I’m starting to think about whether it’s worth renewing next year.
I got to the airport in Toronto this morning with plenty of time to check in, go to the lounge and then wander down to the gate. Or so I thought. There were about 30 people in line waiting for one harried Air Canada agent. I finally got through and heading off to go through security. It was hell but that’s not Air Canada’s fault.
Got into the lounge without problem and immediately noticed a few things:
The flight was fine. Flight deck was unusually chatty which is always a good thing. Watched Caddyshack and had a good laugh and saw some incredibly high thunderheads which were stirred up by Hurricane Ike. Left rainy Toronto and landed in sunny Vancouver.
Air Canada, you’re letting the beancounters ruin what was once a proud, great airline. You’re sacrificing decades of goodwill to save a few bucks. I know times are tough but you need to think these things through. And don’t even get me started on your Jazz affiliate pulling all the life vests off their airplanes. Somehow the phrase "penny wise and pound foolish" is stuck in my mind and won’t go away.
September 11, 2001. 9/11. There’s no forgetting the shock of that day. Seven years on and aspects of the events are as fresh today as they were as I sat watching CNN. The initial confusion that was slowly, terrifyingly coalesced into the realization that the United States was being subject to a coordinated attack unlike anything ever seen before (or since).
The eventual number of causalities was not record setting (as cold as that sounds) but the instruments of their deaths marked a paradigm shift in how we viewed commercial airline travel. The glamour, excitement and just plain fun of flying, in an instant, was destroyed forever.
Patrick Smith is an airline pilot (767) and author who also writes columns for SALON and is a frequent contributor in the forums over at Airliners.net. Today he posted a very poignant remembrance of that awful day.
On the Tuesday morning when everything happened, I was deadheading from Boston to a work assignment in Florida. My airplane took off only seconds after American’s flight 11. I had watched it back away from gate 25 at Logan’s terminal B and begin to taxi.
Forced to land in Charleston, South Carolina, he joined other bewildered people to watch as the second plane hit the World Trade Centre:
I’m watching the video of the second airplane, shot from the ground, apparently with somebody’s camcorder in a kind of 21st century Zappruder film. The picture swings left, picks up the United 767 moving swiftly. The plane rocks, lifts its nose, and like a charging, pissed-off bull making a run at a fear-frozen matador, drives itself into the very center of the south tower. The airplane simply vanishes. For a fraction of a second there is no falling debris, no smoke, no fire, no movement. It’s as though the plane has been swallowed by a skyscraper of liquid. Then, from within, you see the white-hot explosion and spewing expulsion of fire and matter.
Finally, tragically and unbelievably, the towers collapse
To me, had the airplanes crashed, blown up, and reduced the upper halves of those buildings to burned-out hulks, the whole event would nonetheless have clung to the realm of believability. But it was the collapse — the groaning implosion and the pyroclastic tornadoes whipping through the canyons of lower Manhattan — that catapulted the event from ordinary disaster to pure historical infamy. As I stand awestruck in this shithole airport restaurant in South Carolina, the television shows the towers of the World Trade Center. They are not just afire, not just shedding debris and pouring out oil black smoke. They are falling down. The sight of those ugly, magnificent towers collapsing onto themselves is the most sublimely terrifying thing I have ever seen.
In the ten-second bursts it took them to fall, I knew something about the business of flying planes was changed for good. And pilots, like firemen, policemen, and everyone else whose professions had been implicated, had no choice but to take things, well, personally. Four on-duty crews — eight flight officers in total –- were victims. They were disrespected in the worst way, killed after their beloved machines were stolen from under them and driven into buildings.
Captain Smith then goes on to reflect on how the world of air travel has changed:
People ask now, “What’s different?” Maybe I’m more philosophical than many of my peers, but at heart the changes aren’t the quantifiable kind: security, cockpit doors, baggage screening and the like. It’s more sinister and intangible — something that can’t be armored, upgraded, or fenced in by razor wire. It’s a state of mind — a state of disappointment and anger. Anger to have had our planes so brazenly stolen, coworkers fooled, killed, and thousands more thrown out of work. What drives it home are the same pains and inconveniences now faced by everyone: long lines, angst and unpleasantness in the terminals.
I can’t see how it be summed up more eloquently than that.
The Honourable Lawrence Cannon, Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, today launched Flight Rights Canada, to provide Canadian air travelers and carriers with a clear documentation of the rights and obligations they both have.
FLIGHT RIGHTS
- Air passengers in Canada are entitled to easy access to information regarding their rights with respect to air transportation services, including but not limited to such things as denied boardings, cancellations, and long delays. Passengers are also entitled to information about services for air travellers with various disabilities.
- Carriers are obligated to make their terms and conditions of carriage easily available to passengers.
- Air transportation regulations specify what elements must be addressed in a carrier’s terms and conditions of carriage.
- Carriers are required to address matters such as compensation for denied boarding as a result of overbooking, delays, cancellations, passenger re-routing, and lost and damaged baggage.
- The terms and conditions of carriage are legally binding on carriers.
- Passengers have recourse to a complaints resolution process that begins with the air carrier. Under this process, passengers should seek direct redress or remedy first from the carrier for any breach of service commitments or obligations.
- Passengers may seek corrective measures or a refund of direct expenses incurred, if they believe an air carrier has not lived up to the commitments in its published tariffs.
- If a complaint is not resolved between a passenger and the air carrier, the passenger can contact the Canadian Transportation Agency at 1-888-222-2592 or by e-mail at info@cta-otc.gc.ca. The Agency is an administrative tribunal with quasi-judicial powers. It is responsible for a wide range of adjudicative and economic matters pertaining to federally regulated air transportation.
- The Agency initially uses an informal approach to manage complaints. If passengers are unsatisfied with the informal process, they can launch a formal complaint to the Agency.
September 2008
CODE OF CONDUCT OF CANADA’S AIRLINES
Passengers have a right to information on flight times and schedule changes. Airlines must make reasonable efforts to inform passengers of delays and schedule changes and to the extent possible, the reason for the delay or change.
Passengers have a right to take the flight they paid for. If the plane is over-booked or cancelled, the airline must:
a) find the passenger a seat on another flight operated by that airline;
b) buy the passenger a seat on another carrier with whom it has a mutual interline traffic agreement; or
c) refund the unused portion of the passenger’s ticket.Passengers have a right to punctuality.
a) If a flight is delayed and the delay between the scheduled departure of the flight and the actual departure of the flight exceeds 4 hours, the airline will provide the passenger with a meal voucher.
b) If a flight is delayed by more than 8 hours and the delay involves an overnight stay, the airline will pay for overnight hotel stay and airport transfers for passengers who did not start their travel at that airport.
c) If the passenger is already on the aircraft when a delay occurs, the airline will offer drinks and snacks if it is safe, practical and timely to do so. If the delay exceeds 90 minutes and circumstances permit, the airline will offer passengers the option of disembarking from the aircraft until it is time to depart.Passengers have a right to retrieve their luggage quickly. If the luggage does not arrive on the same flight as the passenger, the airline will take steps to deliver the luggage to the passenger’s residence/hotel as soon as possible. The airline will take steps to inform the passenger on the status of the luggage and will provide the passenger with an over-night kit as required. Compensation will be provided as per their tariffs.
Nothing in Flight Rights Canada would make the airline responsible for acts of nature or the acts of third parties. Airlines are legally obligated to maintain the highest standards of aviation safety and cannot be encouraged to fly when it is not safe to do so. Similarly, airlines cannot be held responsible for inclement weather or the actions of third parties such as acts of government or air traffic control, airport authorities, security agencies, law enforcement or Customs and Immigration officials.
Flight Rights Canada does not exclude additional rights you may have under the tariffs filed by your airline with the Canadian Transportation Agency, or legal rights that international and trans-border passengers have pursuant to international conventions (e.g., the Warsaw Convention) and related treaties.
Long overdue.
The first of my finds from the shop out in St. Jacob’s. Hertz pushing the luxury of air travel and car rentals as the 1950’s come to an end. United is just about to launch regular service of their new DC-8 and Hertz is ready to rent you a shining new Chevrolet to make your trip complete.
What’s changed since then? You hardly ever deplane right on to the tarmac anymore unless it’s at Heathrow in London or Charles De Gaulle in Paris and then it’s just to board a bus for the long trip to the terminal. A 4 foot fence? Not bloody likely and you certainly couldn’t drive a car right up to it without a SWAT team going postal all over your ass. A smiling “Stewardess”? Excuse me, we’re flight attendants and we have very little to smile about.
It’s the nostalgia of these advertisements that catch my attention. The glamour of air travel is gone along with our naive innocence.
We’re just starting a week of vacation. Looks like it will be a busy one! Tomorrow morning (Tuesday), I go for my Class 3 medical which I need for my student pilot’s license and Thursday I’m writing my PSTAR exam.
In between, we’re off to one of our favourite spots – St. Jacob’s Ontario. We arrive Tuesday afternoon and it’s straight off to the outlet mall. Later in the evening we’re off to dinner at Benjamin’s in the centre of the village. Wednesday morning it’s more shopping and we’ll be back home in the afternoon so I can continue studying.
St. Jacob’s is a wonderful town for photography. I took the picture above a few years ago because how often do you run across a broom maker? The village is nestled in Mennonite country and, even though St. Jacob’s is very commercial, time slows down just a little to accommodate their lifestyle.
Ok, so it’s a corny headline. Heck it works. High above the Rockies from seat 12F on a Air Canada A320. I’d forgotten just how majestic they were. I’ve seen the Alps and, yes, they’re beautiful too but there’s something about the Rocky Mountains that makes the Canadian heart stir.
A normal economy flight – no meal (unless you buy it) but I was in a good seat. Watched the movie “Cloverfield” and you should save your money. The same jerky camera style that made “The Blair Witch Project” so hard to watch. Bargain basement CGI monster but at least it wasted and hour and a half.
I’ve made it as far as the Richmond Inn and so far all I see is construction. It’s almost as if they were preparing for something. Oh yeah, the Olympics. After work tomorrow, I hope to make it over to my old stomping grounds of West Vancouver and North Vancouver. Lots of places to see.
Of course, no trip to Vancouver would be complete without a trip to White Spot for one of their Triple “O” hamburgers. Those things have been clogging my arteries since 1967 when we moved out here. They don’t taste as good as I remember but at least I made my pilgrimage.
As I took a break before contemplating the commute home tonight, I came across this article in the Globe and Mail.
Air Canada pays $68,948 in fuel costs to get one of their efficient Boeing 777′s from Toronto to London’s Heathrow Airport. Even if the aircraft was completely full (349 seats), it would still cost $197.56 per person.
Even with fuel surcharges, the rising cost of oil is squeezing any profit out of the airline industry. Players like AC can probably weather this storm but you’ve got to wonder how the low cost, no frills charter companies are going to survive. Hell, even some of the debt and cost laden big US carriers likely won’t survive this for very long.
Air travel started off as an adventure, worked it’s way up to a rich man’s mode of travel and finally became an option for the masses to see the world. How long before we slide backwards and only the rich or business people in a hurry will be able to afford it?
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