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Charter Flight Websites / Services?
X86Daddy asks: "TSA's latest announcement banning all fluids (toothpaste even) from carry-on luggage is the icing on a very sour cake. Many passengers are growing tired of the invasive security screenings, the increasing prices, lost and stolen luggage, and the decreasing quality of service with commercial flights in the United States. However, given the geographical size of this country and the lack of rail options, flight remains the only practical method of travel for most destinations. Can anyone suggest alternative flight services? Are there websites that connect Cessna or other small scale air charter services with interested passengers? I've found CharterX and CharterHub but they seem more geared toward executives looking for jets. Does anyone have experience traveling this way? Is the price point a lot higher, making this a dumb idea (just resign myself to buying toiletries at every destination and prepare for the mandatory anal probes in '07)?"
... you could just, you know, not put your toiletries in your carry-on and not buy them at each destinations. Am I the only one who doesn't typically have toothpaste in his carry-on ? The only case I could see is when you're gone for only two days and want to avoid waiting for the other luggage but even then...
If you've been paying attention the past few years, the FAA and the major airlines seem hellbent on removing general aviation from the US altogether (closing non-airline airports, insisting on implementing per request fees for ATC, trying to ground all aircraft built before the last few decades. And don't get me started on the stupidity of every major city wanting a Washington D.C. style Air Defense Identificaton Zone). I suspect having nothing flying anywhere near the ground except governemnt controled drones would suit them just fine.
Join Tor today!
...the "not being blown to chunks at 30,000 feet"...
Inconceivable that you would rather "take your chances" than leave your toothpaste behind.
I don't know which side you're on with the reactionary comment but to me this is a clear trend towards reducing personal freedoms through bureaucratic hoops. Personally, I don't want to fly as much as I used to because I don't want to wait in line for 2 hours or give them my fingerprints to get in the quick line. I want to bring my own freakin toothpaste when I travel. Freedom to move around the country is a pretty basic right which is being eroded by stealth.
It makes about as much sense as that time when I saw a PILOT going through airport security shortly after 9/11 and the screener morons were taking his nail scissors. If a pilot wants the plane to go down, its going down.
Or, even better for this topic:
You said one thing right:
In order to be fair, this ultimatum should be only *after* we have stopped our meddling in the Middle East. All troops should first be unilaterally withdrawn and all aid to Israel should cease.
I think you'd find that if the US did that, all of the attacks would stop.
...Because if there's one thing better than folks whose government dislikes us but whose population is ambivalent, it's a country with a desperate, starving population with nothing to lose and whose brothers, sisters, parents and babies we've killed.
Seriously, the only way to stop this stuff in the long term is cooperation and a sharing of cultures. The amount of energy at the disposal of each person on Earth is becoming more massive each year, and we're never going to catch everyone. We need to begin the process of stopping them from wanting to attack us. That means marginalizing the radical elements of both their culture and ours (people such as yourself), and eliminating those people's support among their peers (that's us, modding you down).
E pluribus unum
True. I wish high speed rail would become a reality in the United States. The first step would be removing the broken-beyond-repair disaster known as Amtrak so that a competent agency can take their place. Currently, politics prevents passenger rail in the U.S. from being anything but a miserable failure.
Anyone who has been flying very often for very long knows:
- Flights have gotten dramatically cheaper in the past few years. With the discount carriers (Southwest) and competition from the big carriers, round-trips under $150 are not uncommon.
- Flying is easier than ever. Security has gotten more annoying, but everything else is better.
- Gone are the days when you had to go to the counter (or tip a skycap) to check in (even if you don't have checked baggage). - - Gone are the days when you had to wait for your tickets in the mail (or go to the airport or a travel agent).
- Gone are the days when you had to spend countless minutes (sometimes hours) in line or on the phone just to book a flight. Today, you can book online easily and get your boarding pass from an easy-check-in kiosk.
- There are more flights to more places from more places at more times. Non-stop is the norm if you are in a decently large city.
So, I guess the only real complaints are:
- Services have been reduced. No more free meals, for one - often no hot meals at all. But, hey, airplane food was never good, and at least you don't have to pay for headphones anymore. And, if it lowers my fares more, I'm all for cutting the frils.
- Security takes longer. It's always been a joke, it still is, and I suspect that it always will be. Guess what, though? It's standardized now, so you know what to expect, and the inspectors are paid better, so they usually aren't asleep on the job. In a well-managed airport (e.g. Denver), the lines are short or nonexistant during off hours, reasonable during normal times, and acceptable during peak hours.
So, air travel is available to more people than ever before, and it's easier than ever in most regards. I think that you can put your toothpaste in your checked luggage.
There should be an ultimatum: if there is another terrorist attack or attacks causing major loss of life, any country found to be harboring and/or funding Islamic terrorists will be attacked. Not invaded. Attacked. Their cities will be summarily carpet-bombed...
It's a reasonably good strategic response to a rational state-like entity whose strength is in their infrastructure, especially in a situation like, say, Afghanistan, where there's close cooperation between the state and the terroists. It loses a considerable amount of its strategic value against non-state actors whose life depends on in the appeal of their ideology, and where the state and the terrorists may have at best an uneasy state of coexistence.
In many cases, what we want from states which are in the uneasy-coexistence state (or better) is greater cooperation in pursuing and apprehending terrorists, and in suppressing radical Islamist elements. That greater cooperation has to come both from the authorities and population. Carpet-bombing a city is unlikely to produce the cooperation. Nor is it particularly improbable it could create sympathy for radical Islamist claims.
Tweet, tweet.
I agree with you on the negative trend with air travel, but ultimately we have to remember that air travel is a very expensive, cumbersome and fragile way to travel. When you introduce terrorists trying to screw it up it just makes it tougher from a practical and economic stand point. To me, it is obvious that we have to be looking at alternative infrastructure in the way of trains, not just as a backup for terrorist disruptions but if oil prices keep rising. Over the last 100 years we have dismantled trains and poured money into highways and air and neither of these are as robust or cost effective, especially if mass transit is a priority. There's a reason why all other nations have kept or expanded their rail service: it's reliability and long term cost efficiency.
Apparently not, because they're emptying all of these containers of potential explosive and dangerous chemicals into big trashcans right in the middle of airport crowds:
d _could_.html
http://www.boingboing.net/2006/08/10/if_the_liqui
Is there any way they would endanger the public this way if they really thought there was any chance the "liquids" could be dangerous? And if they don't think there's such a chance, why are they confiscating them in the first place?
I call bullshit.
Is this a troll? I just can't tell anymore..
Those US soldiers in Iraq are not protecting MY freedoms. If that's their goal, they're doing a piss-poor job of it, because MY freedoms have been getting reduced and eliminated left and right since the infamous 9/11 tragedy.
Maybe they are over there to "bring freedom and democracy to Iraq" instead? That wasn't the given reason at the beginning. The Bush administration was telling everyone that Saddam had "ties" with Al Quaeda and Saddam was actively developing chemical and nuclear WMDs, and Rumsfeld said they knew exactly where. Fast forward several years.. We are $450 BILLION dollars deeper in debt because of this war (here you are, son), even while pork spending has increased, freedoms and rights have decreased, our volunteer forces have been stretched beyond their sustainable limits, and over 100 THOUSAND people have died as a result of this incompetently planned war. And we are no safer from terrorism in 2006 than in 1996.
Truth is, the soldiers over there are obeying orders, and generally obeying them well. The orders are what's fucked up, and the reason we're over there in the first place, and it's a fucking crime that we're at WAR in Iraq at all.
Back to the shampoo bottles.. do you think it matters to a suicide bomber whether the explosives are in the carry-ons or the checked luggage? Or whether the utensils are plastic? Forget whether you feel safer? Are you safer?
Everyone is entitled to his own opinions, but not his own facts.
If they kill 100 or 1,000 our innocent civilians, you think we should respond by killing thousands or tens of thousands of innocent their civilians? That's about the only thing I can think of that will swell the terrorist ranks more quickly than our current meddling in the region. You're not exactly dealing with rational, cost-benefit type people here: they place zero value on human life, including (maybe especially) their own. The nuclear standoff of the Cold War worked because the USSR didn't want war anymore than we did. To a radical Islamist, mutually-assured destructions just looks like the express line to heaven.
The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer. - Albert Einstein
Airline security is a joke. And it's on us.
Next attack attempt: weapons/substances smuggled in via anally-inserted container
Response: All passengers must submit to anal probe prior to takeoff. You may request a same-sex examiner, but it may delay you further.
Next attack attempt: weapons/substances swallowed, produced in-flight either by regurgitation or timed bowel movement
Response: All passengers must submit to a 24-hour fasting/emetic/diuretic/laxative regimen before takeoff. Water will be provided; outside drinks not allowed. You must use the provided toilet facilities to ensure proper testing/inspection of waste.
Next attack attempt: a team of guys trained to bite effectively
Response: All passengers must have all teeth removed prior to takeoff. There will be two dentists on duty per airport to process the unprepared, but lines will be long, so plan ahead.
Next attack attempt: regular old martial arts
Response: Seats eliminated; all passengers shall be assigned a sealed 3' x 3' x 8' pen and will be locked in for duration of flight.
Next attack attempt: guys wait near airports with surface-to-air rockets
Response: All buildings/cities/people removed from all airports to a distance of five miles, and land paved (and landfill created, if near water); round-the-clock patrols and spotters emplaced, with orders to shoot on sight anyone straying from the single barbed-wire/barrier-encrusted access road.
Next attack attempt: bomb detonated and/or machine guns deployed in by-now immense crowd waiting to get through initial security checkpoint
Response: ????
How far does this idiocy go before we decide there must be a better way, folks? Hm?
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
I'm a private pilot. Haven't run into any Blackhawks or fighter jets, but haven't busted any restricted airspace, either. If you're flying, you damn well better know where you are. And before you fly, you should sit down and figure out where you're going to fly and be aware of anything of interest in your proximity. If that's too much to ask of you, please don't take off.
It's not our job to convince you of anything. It's our job to protect you from you and other assholes who would seek to do you and the rest of us harm. It's by rule of majority - that means we keep everybody safe, and disregard the snippy rantings of part-time quarterbacks. In interests such as these, the safety of all outweighs the convenience of the one. Just as you think we're too dumb to protect you, we think you're too dumb to protect yourself.
As a fellow civil servant, let me say that this paragraph is an excellent example of a widespread opinion within the government that I think is completely ridiculous: that the average American is somehow below the average civil servant. I can't stand it, whether it's the lady at the DMV who can't understand why people are annoyed at having to stand in line for hours or the serviceman who thinks that because you're not carrying a gun you're not serving the United States.
The business of the United States isn't government. It's agriculture and manufacturing and research and information. By and large, the people who actually make the United States great aren't the people working for the government. That's why we're called civil servants; we're here to help those people so they can spend their time doing what's actually important without having to worry about things like being robbed or having their radio interfered with or getting fleeced by a cheating business.
When we get in the way of that, they're perfectly right to call us on it. Sure, the intrusion may be necessary, and they may not have any idea what's actually going on, but to claim that we don't have to convince them of anything because this is our job is missing the whole point of our job in the first place. They're not our bosses, but they are our customers.
Let's review what we know: Terrorists are 1) usually middle eastern 2) always Muslim
You mean except when they're named Timothy McVeigh or Terry Nichols?
Or how about Thomas G. Doty, who bombed a Continental Airlines 707 in 1962, killing all on board?
Or, internationally, what about Kim Hyun Hee, who bombed a Korean Airlines 707 as an agent for North Korea in 1987? (No, I'm not talking about flight 007, which was shot down by the USSR.)
Or what about Inderjit Singh Reyat, who constructed the bomb that brought down Air India flight 182 in 1985? Oh, but he's of Indian descent, and I guess to you "they all look the same" over there. (Even though he was Canadian...)
Or how about John Graham, who bombed United Airlines flight 629 in 1955?
That's just scratching the surface; I haven't included bombings where non-muslim extremists from Latin America, the Balkans, or Asia are suspected but not named.
Still going to cling to your theory that terrorists are "always Muslim" or even "usually middle-eastern"? The vast majority of airliner bombings have been perpetrated by non-muslim, non-middle easterners. They're not always political (at least two of the above were life insurance scams), but that hardly matters to the passengers, who are just as dead.
I agree with your position -- I fly on business all the time, and I want (hell, I expect) my government, if it doesn't do anything else for me that day, to at least make traveling reasonably safe.
On the other hand, the security that they do implement seems like a total waste of time. People have already pointed out the problems with the "no liquids" rule: what about liquid medications? Do you not let people with liquid medications on? If you don't, you might kill them or make it much harder for them to travel; if you don't, the whole "no liquids" exercise was pointless, since all you need to do is get an Rx medicine bottle, fill it up with your liquid explosive, and take it on board. (It's even better than putting it in a water bottle, because nobody can reasonably demand that you take a big swig to prove it's not poison -- many medications are poison, or close to it.)
Plus, all the additional restrictions apply only to hand luggage. If you're not putting the same level of scrutiny on every single checked bag (which they don't, because they don't have the resources to do so; it improved slightly after 9/11 but they still do more to hand luggage -- because that's where people will see the security, so that's where it gets put -- than to checked stuff) then someone could put the liquid-bomb there, and remote detonate it from the cabin with a transmitter like every other person in this country already carries on their keychain.
Planes are big, fragile machines; it doesn't take very much to knock one out of the sky. Eventually, I think a few things are going to happen, because the current way we're approaching security just isn't working, and isn't going to work. It's designed to create the appearance of security, not security itself. Probably the biggest step we're going to have to take is to eliminate jumbo and super-jumbo jets: when you have people hell-bent on blowing themselves up, it's not practical to assume that you're going to catch all of them. Thus you can't put so many "eggs" in one basket, either in terms of just the lives lost if one of them is crashed, or by giving the attackers such a large weapon (both literally and in terms of public relations). Smaller, lighter, more fuel-efficient jets, going to more localized airports (further removing some of the terrible centralization our system suffers from now), are probably the best way of limiting the consequences of an attack.
There is just no way to prevent someone who is so absorbed with the task of killing others that they're willing to destroy themselves, from accomplishing their task. Any screening procedure will have holes. Any background check will have places where information can be injected, manipulated, omitted, or forged.
The problem we have, and which our government (and the airline industry generally) isn't willing to tackle, is not something that's going to be solved by issuing a few new procedures to the TSA screeners. It's something that can only be mitigated, and even then will require a huge systemic overhaul of our transportation infrastructure, removing the centralized points of failure that we've built up as ready targets for terrorism, and replacing them with a more robust, fault-tolerant, and survivable one.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
It's not that people can't adapt to small shifts. They can and usually do. The problem people have here is that they realize that adapting to each shift is an acceptance of the extra quarter degree of heat. --The eventual result of which, when all those quarter degree increases are added together, is that the water will boil and the frog will die. Why doesn't the frog jump out before the water boils? Because it's easier to pretend that small shifts don't matter than it is to do something to remedy the situation.
-FL
Let's begin:
Those are the issues that are affecting me the most. The first one might not be so serious (although it still reminds me of the "papers, please" policy of the Soviets), and the second one may only be a local issue, but the latter two are big pressing issues that are a direct consequence of our War on Terror policies.
The best way to fight terror isn't to make our government bigger and to impose countless amounts of restrictions on our citizens, as well as curb civil liberties, listen in on our conversations, and log our data. The best way to fight terror is for the government to get out of Middle Eastern (or any other foreign) conflict. The sooner we exit, the sooner the Middle Easterners won't hate us anymore (hence, no terror attacks from them or any other foreign country), and the sooner we can return to some sense of sanity again. We'll have no terrorism if there is no reason for terrorists to terrorize us in the first place.
There are extremists on BOTH sides of the fence. I know we have people here who think a little nuke or three dropped in the right spots would "show 'em who's boss."
However, MOST people, Christians and Islamists alike, would just like to have a decent job, a roof over their heads, enough food to eat, and the desire to send healthy kids off to school in the morning with a reasonable expectation that they'll stay that way.
Bin Laden has a distorted view of his religion, and an agenda to push. GWB also has a distorted view of his religion, and also has an agenda to push.
Personally, I think the planet would be better off with both of them locked away somewhere. Let them fight it out, and the rest of us can get on with living our lives...
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
What do those two links have to do with it?
The first link you posted is about really bad on-time performance. Maybe you didn't read the parent post. It was suggesting an inter-city passenger rail network, because delays are inevitable as long as we are trying to mix Amtrak with freight trains. The parent post said: "I can understand anyone having a negative opinion if Amtrak is all you have had opportunity to experience. They are a freight network. Please do not judge modern commuter rail travel by their miserable example." And quoting the article you cited: "Spokesman James Barnes acknowledges that increased Union Pacific freight traffic along the route is the cause of congestion."
The second link is a book about a cult that released noxious gas in Tokyo subway stations. Maybe you didn't read the parent post. It was suggesting an inter-city passenger rail network. It's not really like a subway (other than the fact that it runs on rails). It's not underground, the stations aren't enclosed areas, and so on. The parent post said: "Electric surface level trains are an inherently poor terrorist target."
As for the hub-and-spoke model, it works quite well with rail. Need to go from London to Switzerland? Take the train from London to Paris. Then from Paris to Switzerland. Paris is a hub. In fact almost all train routes to/from secondary cities go through a hub in a larger city.
As the previous post said, "fast trains neatly fill the 50 mile to 1000, mile middle range." They aren't meant to replace air travel for longer trips. An airline might have three or four major hubs throughout the country. They are working at a different scale than rail. Since this type of rail is meant to cover medium distances it would have hubs that are appropriate at that scale.
The sparse population between LA and SF doesn't matter. High-speed trains -- unlike Amtrak -- don't stop at every city along the way. For a 400 mile trip you might have one 10-minute stop. it is O&D traffic (translation: it would be there to serve the LA-to-SF market, not to be semi-viable on that route and then try to make it up by picking up onsies-twosies from towns along the way).
Small towns wouldn't get direct high-speed rail service. Instead, they would take a slower train to -- yes, the nearest hub, where they could catch a high-speed train. It's the same hub-and-spoke system used by airlines where small towns are served by commuter aircraft that feed larger hubs.
I really don't understand why everyone is jumping on toothpaste as their example of how this rule bothers them. How about water? You can't bring a water bottle onto a plane. This means that you are completely at the mercy of the very slow cart that brings the tiny cups of soda once or twice during the flight. And airplanes are very dry places. When you're terribly thirsty and you realize that you were barred from doing anything about it by the TSA, you're going to be much more pissed than when you realized you would have to check your toothpaste.
How about DON'T resign yourself to anything? Have you forgotten that this is supposed to be government of, by, and for the people? They work for us, not the other way around; does a boss resign himself to the fact that his employees will show up 5 hours late every day? Hell, no; he tells them to show up on time or he fires them and finds others who will. It's time to take a stand against bad government, the kind that has allowed our rail infrastructure to degrade to pre-1900 performance levels and the kind that scares and/or bullies people into waiting in line 2 hours to get searched for incredibly dangerous items like nail clippers and shaving cream while as everyone knows there are dozens of ways to destroy an airplane if you're determined enough. Instead of kowtowing to the government's plans for you, how about sending the government a message by proxy?
Stop traveling. Just stay home.
I understand this may be a slight annoyance for you, but it's vastly more effective than writing your Congressman. Why? It puts the economic multiplier effect into play. When you don't travel, and make it clear to potential hosts, such as family and friends, as well as the hotel you would have stayed at, the theme park you would have visited, the owner of the boat you would have rented, and the guide you would have employed, you give other people reason to fight for your cause. And when these people turn around and tell their local chamber of commerce about these calls, an entire city's worth of business leaders will be on your side, even those who don't care about tourism or hospitality: they know that the hoteliers, theme park operators, boat shops, and guides are their customers, who now have less money to spend. Just a few thousand people making a point not to travel, and to let others know why they're not traveling, are enough of an economic force to enlist millions of powerful allies. Start an organised travel boycott in a few cities and it's all but over. Direct pressure on the government doesn't work; a few thousand people can't influence an elected official, especially if they're not wealthy. But the interconnectedness of the economy, and business owners' fresh memories of a nation that doesn't travel, allow us to harness the multiplier effect and force change.
What kind of change? Nationwide high-speed rail, for one. An end to ineffective, inconvenient, undignified, and unconstitutional searches and demands for identification for all domestic travel modes. Better training for all transportation and emergency personnel to ensure that everyone knows that transit vehicles, whether on land or water or in the air, have priority at all times. Changes in the law to prohibit police (whether federal, state, or local) from interfering with safe and timely transportation operations - be it traffic on a freeway or a train crossing a bridge - for any reason. In short, the only reason any transit vehicle should ever arrive late is unavoidable mechanical failure. And no one should ever be searched without a warrant. Simple as that.
Join the travel boycott. Enforce change.