Issues

As of this morning, all inter-country travelers in the Western Hemisphere will require passports. Homeland Security has called for this change after the previous requirement was a driver’s license or photo ID.

Decades of terror-free skies and inflated business travel budgets led to a very competitive air travel industry. This looks to change over the next few years as the majority of major US airlines look to merge or commit hostile takeovers.

Currently, United and Continental are in the middle of merger talks. Since Continental is partially owned by Northwest, this would largely eliminate competition between three major airlines.

Delta is in the process of fighting off a hostile takeover from US Airways which continues to increase its bid on the airline. This comes shortly after a US Airways consolidation of America West Airlines.

AirTran continues to increase its bid for Midwest Air Group, an increasing unprofitable airline which prides itself on undersold flights, comfortable seats, and cookies on its flights.

The flood of mergers and takeovers will likely lead to a more profitable air travel industry with fewer routes being flown and higher fares for fliers.

People complain about airline food all the time. And why wouldn’t they? For the most part it’s pretty damn gross.

But on top of being suspect taste-wise, meals in the sky can also be packed with way more calories and fat than you would typically consume in a meal. For those who only fly occasionally, this isn’t a huge deal. But those in-flight meals can really add up if you’re a business traveler. And with unpredictable exercise opportunities, it can be really hard to treat yourself well on the road.

Here are the nutritional values on some of those meals according to the most recent issue of Shape magazine.

Breakfast: Delta’s cheese omelet, turkey bacon, roasted potatoes, blueberry muffin and fresh fruit combo packs a whopping 616 calories and 30 grams of fat.

Lunch: Continental’s personal cheese pizza has 812 calories and 27 grams of fat.

Business-Class: American’s rosemary lam chops with broccoli-tomato medley and potato wedges has 960 calories and 65 grams of fat.

Snack Pack: Southwest’s pack of cheese and crackers, sandwich cookies and fruit snacks has 550 calories and 24 grams of fat.

Requesting a low-fat vegetarian option may be your best bet. For example, Northwest Airlines serves a vegetarian wrap with 167 calories and 4 grams of fat. Now that’s more my speed!

I’ve been a big advocate of special women-only seating for any number of travel venues ever since I found myself discomfited by the wandering hands of a purportedly “sleeping” male seatmate a few years ago. It looks like Russian Railways understands the need.

What do you guys think? Would you feel like this was preferential treatment for female passengers or do you support these kinds of accommodations for women who feel uncomfortable being squeezed into close quarters with unfamiliar men?

The Bush administration announced that it is checking the accuracy of the US no-fly list, and plans to cut the list in half. This comes as a result of numerous people being kept off flights who were clearly not terrorists, such as Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez, as well as a recent lawsuit involving airport screening.

A federal jury in Boston has awarded a Portuguese computer consultant $400,000 for his being “profiled” by American Airlines. Passenger John Cerqueira was ejected from a Boston flight bound for Fort Lauderdale on December 28, 2003. The plane’s pilot, Captain John Ehlers, claimed passengers said Cerqueira was making inappropriate, suspicious comments in the boarding area and onboard the aircraft. Cerqueira was escorted off the flight and questioned. He was not permitted to reboard. This is the first case of its kind to come before a jury since 9/11.

American Airlines recently lost a $400,000 lawsuit against a Florida man who was removed from a flight from Boston’s Logan International Airport. The man claimed he was removed from the flight for no other reason than that he appeard Middle Eastern.

This is the first lawsuit to be resolved in the debate between civil-rights and security that has raged since the attacks on September 11. It may have serious ramifications on airlines and airports, particularly given the rather large size of the award.

Remember a few months ago when airlines cracked down on laptop computers after Dell’s exploding laptop fiasco? Well, don’t be surprised if it happens with cell phones after the exploding-cell-phone-gives-California-man-second-and-third-degree-burns fiasco.

Since your phone will be turned off anyway, you might want to think about removing and stowing the battery during transit.

Currently, the FAA and FCC do not allow for the use of cellphones on planes. However, this ban might be disappearing soon, as these two agencies are currently studying cellphone use on planes and considering reversing their policy.

Cellphones have already been allowed on Dubai-based airline Emirates, which has flights to New York, starting next month. It is currently estimated that at least four cellphones are left on per flight, and one is used per flights. If cellphones are allowed on planes, those who have modem capabilities would be able to surf the web at 30,000 feet.

US Airways increased its bid to takeover Delta today by 20 percent to about 10.3 billion dollars. Northwest Airlines has also jumped into the fray and is making a move to takeover Delta.

A Northwest takeover of Delta would be considered preferable as the routes of the two airlines overlap significantly less than US Airways and Delta. The potential US Airways takeover has been strongly fought against by Delta managers and pilots who risk losing jobs in competing routes if the deal goes through.

It can be tricky, but the Travel Post Insider has a great list of tips and tricks. They also recommend totally Jewish Travel for more information.

Homeland Security has recently received a masive influx of passport requests due to the January 23 requirement of passports for all travel in the Western Hemisphere between the US and other countries. Previously, a driver’s license was acceptable. As a result, Homeland Security is now offering cheaper passport cards that fit in a wallet and are limited to use for travel between the U.S. and Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and Bermuda.

The cards would cost $20 for adults and $10 for children, with a $25 processing fee. For more information, check out travel.state.gov/travel.

Our co-conspirator Jason Preston has a pretty harrowing holiday travel story that raised some interesting issues about holiday travel. Apparently, he and his parents arrived 2.5 hours early to the airport, only to learn that their flight had already checked in full.

Jason observed that the purpose of check-in is to see who is actually at the airport, because airlines consistently overbook their flights. When people can check in online, it means that other travelers who show up at the airport on time may have to fly standby with tickets they purchased months ago.

It’s a prospect worth keeping in mind as commercial air travel gets ever more harried in the new year.

We were quoted in the Jan/Feb 2007 issue of National Geographic Traveler article “Blogs: The Caveat.” Overall, it’s a well considered piece with some good advice. In a nutshell, the article focuses on the need for readers to remember that bloggers may be getting compensated for the posts they write and to gather information from multiple sources.

I had a debate just the other day with a relative who said “I don’t trust blogs” and I said. “No, you don’t trust BLOG.” Kill that “s” on the end. As the article says, you have to read more than one to truly know if a hotel or resort is really good or bad. The NGT piece should have been titled: “Blog: The Caveat.”

All in all, I think the whole “don’t trust the blogosphere” mantra in the popular press to be overdone. Here’s why:

1) The vast majority of bloggers aren’t shills. The risk of being “gamed” by a blogger is very low. I don’t brand sushi as evil because you have to be careful when eating it.

2) No rational person reads just one blogger’s thoughts and then packs their bags to go to a recommended destination.

3) I’ve worked with a lot of journalists and print publications over the years, and don’t feel the integrity level of traditional press necessarily eclipses that of bloggers. To the contrary, I find the biases of traditional press to be pervasive, and far more slickly shrouded.

One tip: Try sites like Opinmind.com to test for multiple bloggers assessments (good and bad) on popular places and products.

I posted a few days ago about Homeland Security’s terror scores. Apparently, if you sit in aisle seat and order an ethnic meal, your terror score will be higher than mine (I sit by the window and put mayo on everything).

Sen. Patrick Leahy, of Vermont, has raised a few concerns, pledging to launch a congressional oversight initiative. The data-mining program allegedly violates the Privacy Act of 1974. I’m don’t really have a problem with terror scores, but I hope Leahy gets the government to disclose the scores, as I am really curious to see whose terror score is highest: me, Teresa, or Steve.

P.S. I’m sure it’s Teresa.

Apparently, Homeland Security has been assigning “terror scores” to citizens and foreigns when crossing the US border over the past four years.

The terror scores are computer generated calculations of the risk that the travelers are terrorists or criminals. The scores are then put on file for the next fourty years, and citizens are not allowed to check or challenge their scores.

Homeland Security has said that they “would be critically impaired without access to this data.” However, civil liberties lawyer David Sobel has called the program “probably the most invasive system the government has yet deployed.”

The data-mining program has been used for travel watch lists and caused passengers to be temporarily restricted from flying. However, it has yet to be put to any of the tests for accuracy and privacy protection requested two years ago by Congress.

• New machines will scan all luggage for explosives in less time.
• Joe Brancatelli’s ode to the opportunities of business travel.
• The trusted traveler program (which I oppose) is within weeks of beginning.
• An interview with Chris Soghoian, who worked to expose serious flaws in airport security.

There are always at least two sides to every story. The most recently story of flying while Muslim has taken another twist. Today, the Washington Times ran a story about how the men appeared to be intentionally raising suspicions by mimicking a wide variety of suspicious behaviors.

One hypothesis is that the men were looking for a reason to sue US Airways. Another is that their actions were a misguided attempt to draw attention to a real issue that angered them greatly. It’s also possible that they were truly discriminated against, although the mounting evidence that the US Airways officials had legitimate reasons to act as they did makes this increasingly unlikely.

Technorati Tags: flying while muslim

As I wrote yesterday, a group of six Muslim clerics were kicked off an airplane after they did their evening prayers in the terminal and were overheard by a nervous passenger talking angrily about the United States’ Iraq policy.

Apparently, there was also some other suspicious behavior on the part of the men that was not previously reported. According to USA Today, three of the men had one-way tickets and no checked luggage. They also asked the flight attendant for seat belt extensions, even though they clearly didn’t need them.

Obviously, there are a lot of opinions on racial profiling at airports. I’m not going to get into it because it’s a complex issue, and I’m pretty ambivalent about where I stand on it at this juncture.

But one thing is pretty clear, if these guys had been terrorists. They wouldn’t have been making any overt displays of their faith. They wouldn’t have been clustered together at the gate or openly discussing their anger at US policy in Iraq. They would have been doing their best to blend in. They probably wouldn’t have been talking to one another at all.

Technorati Tags: Flying While Muslim, racial profiling, airport security

Six Muslim clerics on their way back from a Minneapolis conference were detained on Monday after a startled passenger heard the men reciting their traditional daily prayer toward Mecca and alerted the flight attendant that he thought the men were suspicious.

US Airways has not made accommodations for the Imams, nor has it arranged for them to travel back to their hometowns of Phoenix, AZ and Bakersfield, CA.

Research has shown that racial bias and stereotyping are–to some degree–a part of human nature. After 9/11, it’s to be expected that some people would be wary of folks who bear any kind of physical, linguistic or customary resemblance to Islamist terrorists they’ve seen on the news. But if we continue to eject people from airplanes for simply praying in a foreign tongue, or for bearing a physical resemblance to Mohammed Atta, then the terrorists have won.

A free society is a society based on trust. When we get on an airplane for a business trip, we’re trusting that our fellow passengers will not try to kill us or use our airplane as a battering ram against a building. As travelers, we must continue to err on the side of that trust unless we see some tangible evidence that indicates the likelihood of an attack. Flight attendants should also have the good sense to distinguish between standard prayer rituals like the one these men were practicing, and terrorist behavior. Finally, airlines should have the common decency to admit when they’ve made a terrible mistake, and make arrangements for unjustly detained passengers to at least get home safe and sound.

Technorati Tags: Traveling While Muslim, Imams, Daily Prayer, Mecca