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If you want to know real inside angles on that even, read the flyertalk.com thread.

That thread is almost certainly being monitored by United Airlines. Back when I was flying on United a whole lot, they started an internet ad campaign that featured stylized persons that were supposed to be waving to a bunch of planes flying off. I posted that it looked like a bunch of Nazis giving the "Heil Hitler" salute to the Luftwaffe on its way to bomb London (and it did look just like that...), and within thirty minutes that internet ad campaign disappeared.

Back at you, Zorak on Flyertalk.

According to the flight captain of JFK-SLC this morning, a routine scheduled switch to the backup generator this morning at 2:30am caused a fire that destroyed both the backup and the primary. Firefighters took a while to extinguish the fire. Power is now back up and 400 out of the 500 servers rebooted, still waiting for the last 100 to have the whole system fully functional.

Re. safety, see here. Tl;dr: it's neither been proven safe nor unsafe in this context; a priori there's reason to believe it's safe short-term, but there've not been any long-term studies. It isn't ionizing radiation (unlike the backscatter x-ray), and isn't strong enough to outright burn (like a microwave), but who knows.

However, I don't care if it's safe, because I view it as a strip search. See my reply (link in OP), p. 9.

Try this link:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum...

(If you search Flyertalk - via Google - you'll find other snippets of info too.)

They would have to flip up like the seat bottom to fit them in: http://www.flyertalk.com/wp-co...

The number of suitable hangars with suitable runways to land on nearby is pretty limited. Maybe all of them should simply be checked.

That's been considered, and I assume the checks would already have been completed.

You can see all the known runways on this map: http://i.imgur.com/Iwa6Ali.jpg

The rest of the discussion here is interesting as well. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum...

No they weren't. This was just LAX

ARRIVING FLIGHTS TO LAX: A total of 27 cancellations, 212 delays, and 27 diversions to other airports

During a ground stop, the FAA has to sort out what is going on because in this case the ATC computers went down. This means controllers shift their attention wholly to inbound flights and order the traffic the old fashioned way which is slow and tedious. That means a lot of circling planes or in case of circling too long or being at the back of the line, getting diverted and sitting it out someplace else, of course you're being held hostage during this time but just remember you have a choice in airlines but not in air traffic control systems.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum...

Senior execs being required to use Airbnb if there is a couch to sleep on thats cheaper than a hotel room..

Ridiculous things your company has done to reduce travel expenses:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum...

By and large, airlines have a history of honouring 'fare mistakes.' There are of course, exceptions, e.g. KAL's $500 fare to Palau...

http://crankyflier.com/2011/11/22/how-mistake-fares-get-filed-and-why-korean-messed-up/

Day after day Flyertalk.com has examples, e.g.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/mileage-run-deals-372/

...but most of the time they do.

Retail is new to the game, so they're still making up the rules as they go along.

I wonder if we made a law that said all airline executives had to fly economy whether they would be so keen to make these changes

Actually, Delta's CEO Richard H. Anderson is known for flying coach.... albeit in an exit row seat, which has extra leg room. Here's a thread about him on Flyertalk, a website for very frequent fliers: Richard H. Anderson rides in coach

And another thread about Southwest's CEO: [Southwest CEO Gary Kelly flys Delta...IN FIRST CLASS

I wonder if we made a law that said all airline executives had to fly economy whether they would be so keen to make these changes

Actually, Delta's CEO Richard H. Anderson is known for flying coach.... albeit in an exit row seat, which has extra leg room. Here's a thread about him on Flyertalk, a website for very frequent fliers: Richard H. Anderson rides in coach

And another thread about Southwest's CEO: [Southwest CEO Gary Kelly flys Delta...IN FIRST CLASS

Do they even make travelers checks anymore? I've never heard of anyone using them in the last 10 years, and me and my friends go all over the world.

But to add to the other good advice on your list, I found that having a chip+pin credit card is becoming essential in Europe. They're pretty hard to find from US credit card companies, but Flyer Talk made a list. There's also a few chip+signature cards available too, but those aren't near as useful apparently as chip+pin. So make sure you get one of those.

Sigh. She went to the airport. What did she think would happen if she refused to use the scanners she knew were there? http://www.flyertalk.com/the-gate/blog/12019-andrea-abbott-revisited.html

Except that in Britain you aren't allowed to opt-out of or refuse the Nude-o-Scan!

Why doesn't the UK allow passengers an 'opt out'?

Yes, they do enforce this:
Doctor barred from flying after refusing body scan on health grounds
Air passengers who refuse a full body scan to be barred from their flights

Try to find an airport that doesn't have the Nude-o-Scan, last I checked LCY (London City Airport) was safe. Best to check before travelling though. Here is a list of airports with NoS that is kept updated by the members of the Flyer Talk forum: Complete List of Airports with Whole Body Imaging/Advanced Imaging Technology Scanner

Posted anonymously so I don't get hassled every time I fly from now on. Sad, but necessary.

Cost to charge an iPad every other day for 1 year: $2

Cost to carry 1 pound of payload 1000 miles on a 777 is : $0.04

Average number of miles a 777 flys in a year : 150,000
In 1 year it takes the 150000/1000*0.04 $60 bucks to fly 1 pound of play load.

The weight of the iPad is 2 pounds
In 1 year it takes $120 to fly an iPad.

30 pounds of flight manuals takes 30*60=$1800

Replacing 30 pounds of flights manuals with an iPad saves $1680 every year. Of course this is just a rough back of the envelope calculation.

Concorde, although a very expensive plane to maintain, was a crown jewel as far as British Airways was concerned. The seats were sold as "supersonic class", something above even first class. They've reused the chairs in the rather posh Concorde Room at Heathrow and access to that is generally restricted to those flying in First.

It's generally believed that the main reason the Concorde stopped flying is because Airbus, who provided parts for the planes, decided they weren't going to carry on manufacturing spare parts. Simple as that - nothing to do with costs to the operators, merely the fact that they couldn't keep a supply chain maintained.

Fun fact: BA rather meanly drained the fluids from their Concordes when they retired them, meaning it'd be nigh impossible to get them to fly again now. The sole Concorde left at Heathrow is now used as a magazine storage room!

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/18842117-post10.html

Of course they may not be sentenced to prison. That does not, however, preclude them from harassment, arrest and/or attempts to throw them in prison.

Phil Mocek was arrested and tried for filming a TSA checkpoint. Oh, and the video of the arrest was deleted while Phil was in custody. Here is a list of 7 incidents that occurred in 2011 alone that involved the arrest, threat of arrest, intimidation or assault of someone photographing or videotaping a public official in public.

This is not BS. It's happening with alarming regularity in the United States. This is despite multiple federal court decisions upholding the right of individuals to film.

Lots of good info here:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/canada/1155046-prepaid-sim-data-smartphone.html

You'll do well if you repost your question to this forum - Lots of good info there:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travel-technology-169/

Start with the "stickies."

War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, and Ignorance is Strength...

Wrong quote.

"Facecrime: An indication that a person is guilty of thoughtcrime based on their facial expression."

The article isn't about surveillance, it's about BDOs and SPOT agents on the lookout for facecriminals.

"It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself, anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face, was itself a punishable offense. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime"

If the Orwell's getting tired, I'd settle for a quote from the other design document on which TSA is based.

"Happiness is mandatory. Are you happy, Citizen?"
- Paranoia XP, the post-9/11 revision of the classic 80s role-playing game.

I'm not so paranoid that I'm reluctant to post this as an AC, but I am paranoid enough that I didn't want to use the acronym for "role-playing-game."

Even worse, TSA is ALREADY expanding its scope to rail travel. His joke was disingenuous because he darn well knows this is happening already. There is no pat-down, though... not yet anyway.

It's hard to find news coverage of TSA scope expansion but it's easy to find personal reports on forums like this.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travel-safety-security/1173803-tsa-suburban-chicago-train-station.html

And the book is generally hardcover and weighs a few hundred times as much as my cell phone.

I am very impressed by this new technology, and would dearly like to acquire a three-gram cell phone like yours. Alternatively, I would like to know how it is that you managed to get an entire set of the Encyclopedia Britannica into your carry-on.

So they should ban books during the same times.

This is true. I have occasionally seen flight attendants ask readers of particularly weighty tomes to stow them during takeoff, but this needs to be better and more broadly enforced. They are also more strict about this for passengers in the first row, because objects in those passengers' laps will fly straight forward and smack directly into the backward-facing flight attendant in the jumpseat by the cabin door. Similarly, compliance regarding stowage tends to be monitored more closely in emergency exit rows. See also, for example, this discussion about stowage of carry-on items.

In at least one respect, books are marginally better than cellular phones and music players in that books don't generate sound that interferes with the ability of the passenger (and other, nearby passengers) to hear and understand announcements from the flight crew.

Looks like Mr B has just bought himself a lifetime ticket to that line...

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travel-safety-security/1123034-tantric-tsa-art-foreplay.html

As folks who travel in and out of Washington, D.C. may remember http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/american-aadvantage/149256-no-standing-up-first-30-minutes.html when Reagan National Airport (DCA) finally re-opened the FAA imposed restrictions on inbound flights to Washington National that prohibited getting out of your seats during the last 30 minutes of flight and imposed restrictions on outbound flights from Washington National that prohibited getting out of year seats during the first 30 minutes of flight.

Eventually some TSA brainiac is going to remember the other half of the rule and ask the aircrew to impose the 1 hour prohibitions on flights outbound from the US.

I say "ask the aircrew to impose" because on-board an in-air flight the FAA's own rules say even the Air Marshal cannot force the pilot do to anything so if you're prevented from going to the bathroom then it's the aircrew's fault and not TSA's. Nuremberg Principle IV is unambiguous in stating that "The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him."

The document appears to have been discovered by user OnTheAsile on the flyertalk.com forums in this post:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travel-safety-security/1024103-foia-request-rules-tsa-requires-passengers-follow-airport-checkpoint-advice.html#post12931726

Several posts later, FlyerTalk members discovered that the blacked out information has not been removed.

They're not first-class seats per se, but you can already do this on United and a number of other carriers. For more see:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=44 2986

Who said anything about telling people where they can and can't go? Why would an ID prevent you from going somewhere? Is there some secret clause in this law that states that once you receive this new ID, you must get permission before traveling over state lines? My Social Security card has never prevented me from going anywhere.

Then you haven't had your name on the Do Not Fly list. Yosuf Islam, previously known as the singer Cat Stevens, found himself on it. Sen. Ted Kennedy has been barred from flying a number of tymes because his name was on it. He may of killed someone when he went off the road in a river but he's not a terrorist.

Who said anything about telling people where they can and can't go? Why would an ID prevent you from going somewhere? Is there some secret clause in this law that states that once you receive this new ID, you must get permission before traveling over state lines? My Social Security card has never prevented me from going anywhere.

Then you haven't had your name on the Do Not Fly list. Yosuf Islam, previously known as the singer Cat Stevens, found himself on it. Sen. Ted Kennedy has been barred from flying a number of tymes because his name was on it. He may of killed someone when he went off the road in a river but he's not a terrorist.

On my work trip to Singapore, I knew that chewing gum was not legal there. So I went to the local convenience shop, and of course there was no gum, but a large assortment of legal candies. As an internet tech goon, I was drawn to the little plastic box (similar to TicTac) with little purple sugar pills labelled "I Love Flash". Oh and those Singapore immigration landing cards are a hoot, with large red friendly letters "possession of drugs is punished by DEATH'. Of course the US is not THAT bad...

What, is today Scary Jailtime Story Day or something of the sort?

First, this story about a guy being jailed after he received a fake check and tried to cash it was reportend on interesting-people, then this story about a guy being arrested, because he had a rubber band ball that the TSA thought contained "something metallic" or drugs (also on interesting-people today), and now this story on Slashdot.

no sane person, regardless of business requirement, would keep up a travel schedule that ridiculous for that long without a break.

Considering a circumnavigation of the equator is only 25k miles and London->Los Angeles is only about 5500 miles, it would take a LAX-LHR round-trip every two weeks without fail for six years to truly earn all that in real air miles.

There's a nice story about the "SSSS" on a boarding pass: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=38 8014

Visit FlyerTalk's security forum here: http://flyertalk.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=222 and read many stories about TSA's incompetence.

On sites like FlyerTalk there are numerous threads about shoe carnival airports. Basically, if you do not take off your shoes and do not set of the alarm, all you have to get is a swab of your shoes to test for explosives residue. If they do anything more to you it's against TSA regulations and you should file a complaint form. Of course you always have a chance at a retaliatory screening. Some airports are better than others. Basically, if we stop taking off our shoes that do not set off the detector, we will teach the TSA that a full secondary screening is unnecessary.

TSA completes calculation (2+2) and determines cell phone and computer batteries pose a greater threat aboard planes than boxcutters of nail clippers. Well maybe not yet, but if trends continue, perhaps. In this article we read of exploding batteries and increasing power density. "If you're cramming more and more power in a small space, what you're making is a small bomb," said Carl Hilliard...

Exploding batteries have already caused disruption at LAX.

The subject of potential weapons on planes has been beat to death, but the battery angle is still interesting. Especially when you consider that a weapons intimidation power is more a function of public perception than killing power. The more press exploding batteries receive, the greater the perceived danger. Never mind that a torn beer can can do more damage.

From what I've seen, they're really tough on "referal fraud," that is, when you try to sign up under yourself to get your referals done quicker. Everyone on this board who's done it seems to have been caught, and even a few people who just had similar names as their referals (i.e. Sr/Jr).
Anyway, the best way to do this is sign up for ancestry.com or AOL, then cancel the service during the free trial. For ancestry.com, you have to call an 800#, and they may make you call twice if you aren't insistant, but it's not hard. It does seem like a pyramid scheme, though, so beware (even though it seems like the site has been up a couple of month).
Once you get your five referals to complete their offers, they check your info, which takes a week or so, then they let you order your ipod. You can either get a 15 gb, which ships in a week or so, or a mini, which takes an extra month. Be careful, though, because I have heard a personal report from someone claming that right after they signed up, someone used their credit card number to buy some expensive plane tickets, but I think the two are unrelated.
The link to the forum I posted above has a "conga line" going for people who to refer each other and try to organize the process a bit. I've been siting at two completed for about a week, though, so I'll be a link whore, too.

I guess the math works out, I wonder how much the site gets for each signup. More info here: www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=327173&pa ge=1&pp=15 .

This site has free ipods if you sign up and get 5 friends to sign up for a partner site (e.g. Ancestry.com free trial, which can be cancelled the next day). At least some people have received theirs, according to this discussion forum. I wonder what the signup/ipod giveaway ratio is?

I've found some sites which have really useful information for travel (air, car rental, hotels mainly):

http://www.flyertalk.com
http://www.webflyer.com

Basically, they compare flyer programs, current promotions, and often have discount codes, including ways to get elite tiers on various flyer programs without actually traveling much (such as discount codes offered by a car rental program for gold status, intended for elite-tier members of a partner airline, but which do not check applicants for membership in the airline program)

I've saved thousands of dollars on car rentals, airfare, and hotels, as well as had much more enjoyable trips (renting infinity g35 for $16/day, for insrance) thanks to these sites.

You're telling me that Slashdot is the only major discussion board around? You must be kidding. What about FlyerTalk, or to a lesser extent the Motley Fool?

This is the whole point of frequent flier miles, major-hassle mail-in rebates, etc. They are intended primarily as thinly disguised bribes or kickbacks for employees who spend company money. Every so often some government agency or megacorp tries to horn in on mileage or some similar premium. But the airlines won't go for it, they are quite adamant in insisting that the mileage belongs to the person who flew the metal, as they say on FlyerTalk.

This post on the FlyerTalk forums came directly from a Lufthansa 747 fitted with wireless internet access.

Don
-------

But, Marge, that little guy hasn't done anything yet. Look at him. He's going to do something and you know it's going to be good.

This post on the FlyerTalk forums came directly from a Lufthansa 747 fitted with wireless internet access.

Don
-------

But, Marge, that little guy hasn't done anything yet. Look at him. He's going to do something and you know it's going to be good.

However, the real reason airlines are pushing these is that they're actually a different class of ticket. The contract is different.

Paper tickets are primarily useful if you are traveling on a full-fare unrestricted ticket; if your flight is delayed you can go straight to another airline and your paper ticket is as good as gold. If you are on a restricted ticket, like most leisure travelers, the other airline will not accept your ticket unless your orignal airline endorses it over to them, so you'll have to stand in line at your original airline's ticket counter anyway.

If you want real flying information from frequnet fliers who know all the tricks and rules, go to FlyerTalk instead of slashdot.