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Man With 10 Million Air Miles Gets Plane Named After Him
Chicago car salesman Thomas Stuker has set a record by accumulating an astonishing 10 million air miles on United Airlines. In the past 29 years Thomas has flown almost 6,000 times - racking up a total mileage that would circle the Earth 400 times. From the article: "Mr Stuker has already been highly rewarded with access to a special lounge at the airlines hub in Chicago, first-class upgrades as a matter of course and even a plane named after him on the fleet."
Congratulations, sir and welcome to first-class. Here is your 4-ounce Dr. Pepper and complimentary half-bag of potato chips.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
He is still alive.
Did he get to meet Sam Elliot?
Oh wait, that was Jeff Bridges...
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Didn't Ryan Bingham do this already?
I wonder what his carbon emissions are!!!
0. The plane would fly regardless of whether this one single guy bought a ticket or not.
Soon at the heart of every computer there's a metal fan.
You get an airplane named after you at 1 million miles, if I remember correctly.
Of carbon-footprint hell is this guy going to? Don't forget he's a car salesman. The only thing missing is his hobby of clubbing baby seals.
Check my math... 10e6 miles / 0.5e3 miles per hour = 20e3 hours, right? Did this in my head and its early in the morning... Standard work year is about 2e3 hours so he's spent 10 years equivalent of a full time job sitting in an airplane? With airport hassles he's probably up to 15 years of FTE work?
What has he done with his 15 years of "work"? Are there even 20k hours of audio books worth listening to?
Another back o ye envelope 10e6 miles / 6e3 flights = 1.2/3e3 miles per flight or rephrased 1667 miles per flight. What is he doing? Not flying from Chicago to Japan, I'm guessing. Nor Chicago to Detroit. Hmm.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Stuka?
Why is this a /. article?
By my very quick estimations, 6000 flights over 29 years comes out to him boarding a plane, on average, every 41 hours. For almost three decades.
Think of all the radiation and groping this man has had to endure at the hands of the TSA. I'd like to see a follow up article 5 years from now to let us know what type of cancer he's dying from.
giggity
The article tries to compare him to George Clooney's character in Up In The Air. Reading the article (I know, we don't do that here) suggests there is a better comparison, based on what he does for a living.
I think he is more like Jeremy Piven's character in The Goods.
Of course, I am one of about 20 or so people who actually bothered to see that movie, so the comparison is likely lost on most. So we might as well instead compare him to a character in a well-known movie that nobody watched, instead of a lesser-known movie that nobody watched.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
29 years, almost 6,000 flights... that's about 207 flights a year - or approaching one flight per day for 2/3 of his last 29 years.
Assuming they are talking about the circumference of the earth - that is about 16 million kilometers, or 10 million miles.
[Brief Google searching to: http://www.carbonindependent.org/sources_aviation.htm%5D
Given a a Boeing 737-400 jet (short international flights, likely a significant underestimation if most of his travel was inside the country), this gives a fuel use of 36.6 g/passenger km: so he has personally required used ca. 585,600 kg of fuel.
CO2 emissions? 101 g/passenger km: 1,616,000 kg of gas personally generated.
At sea level pressure / 25 degC, 1kg of CO2 gas = 556 L volume. So, we are talking 898 million liters of CO2 gas.
Or, the equivalent of a cube with sides of about 100 m, about the length of a football field.
Caveat emptor - these are all back of the envelope calculations - and likely gross underestimations.
In unrelated news, the record for "The man whose junk has been handled by the most strangers" has also been rewarded to Thomas Stuker.
Buttons aren't toys.
How about buying some TSA patdown free-pass with some of is miles?
It would be very cool if you could avoid some sexual harassment with your hard-earned miles no?
Slashdot. Unreadable news to annoy nerds. - wonkey_monkey
Seriously, insofar as he's doing this to get work done or make some contribution, well OK, but he also crows loudly about running all over the world just for fun. Is this something we want to celebrate?
That's nothing; after 13 million miles the TSA will name a body-cavity search technique after him.
The ones I know of are sitting in dealerships waiting for suckers, er, customers to walk into the showroom.
And I thought my average of ~135 flights a year was lots.
I almost reached the reward for one year lease on a high end Mercedes and then realize when on Earth would I have time to drive it - I am never home.
I have often been left with stacks of first class upgrades that are left to expire. We had a basket at work just full of these upgrades (which can only be used if you purchase your fare at full price). But when the staff AND security know you by name they already give me upgrades every time I fly anyways.
Love the rewards but often find little use for them. Donating them to charity is good but to spend them on naming a plane is cool!
He was porking the cute airline stewardesses...
I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
Excessive traveling is about as worthless as rating the quality of a software program by the number of lines of code.
Cheers to you Thomas Stuker for burning so much fuel and wasting our precious resources.
They should promote him to an Honorable Member of mile-high club.
You can't handle the truth.
Terminal cancer can be a small price to pay, for some, to have their junk fondled and suitcases rifled through
Wonder how much extra radiation, or extra groping he has endured. 29 years of travel is 1508 weeks. 6000 trips divided by 1508 weeks is 3.9 trips/week lets round that to 4. figure they started using the backscatter machine in the last 2 years thats about 416 trips through the machine, or maybe 416 gropes. Lets say he took gropes. at my local massage parlor i would pay about 30 - 50 bucks to be felt up so i figure he saved himself about 12k in handling charges.
It's all a stunt to sell his cars: Sale in the sky!
A car salesman who only flies? Must be pretty good on the theory.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
If not, that's what he should try to get out of them...
Any armchair physicists care to calculate his levels of radiation exposure when you combine the flight time with the new-fangled porno-scanners? :)
Poor guy, he's gone through more than anyone should have to endure.
I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
Its happened to me once in about 200 flights.
Somebody tell him about video chats and e-mail.
I must be missing something about US air travel. I used to fly between the UK and Europe and between the UK and USA, economy I never ever had any problem getting a drink or six. Normally on a long haul flight overnight I would have a couple of drinks from the trolley and then I would ask for more whenever I wanted them. I was always cheerfully supplied with drinks (whisky and lemonade) and had a restful sleep. Same with the UK/European flights. I usually pushed the boat out on the way home since most of those flights land in the UK in the evening. On one flight from Heathrow to Edinburgh, I had so many miniatures of whisky and those little cans of 7 Up, I had all the refreshments necessary for the interminable train ride from Edinurgh to my then home. Now it is at least five years since my last trip to Asia and in Europe I prefer to drive anyway - European roads so good - but have things changed so drastically in economy class on BA, Lufthansa and Air France or is this just an American travel benefit?
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Let's not forget this Merchant of Death has blood on his hands.
While he was racking up millions of miles in his aluminum skinned ivory tower, this DEALER was peddling steel coffins to the poor and unfortunate souls who braved the gauntlet of traffic EVERY DAY to get where they need to go.
MILLIONS have died while he coursed through the skies in near-perfect safety.
While he may fancy himself a god, pulling his chariot through the sky, he may find himself an Icarus treading too close to the sun.
Repent your sins, sir. Cast off your vainglorious ways. Walk the earth with your fellow man, that you may know him better. Leave behind the dark road paved in misery and death. Step into the light. Salvation is at hand!
That's way too much flying. Period.
With a carbon footprint like that, they should have named an oil tanker after him....
The only man in the airport who's truly entitled to say "I've got to catch my plane." :-)
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
The morale boost knowing your flying in a plane loosely named after a dive bomber (Stuka) must be immense...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkers_Ju_87
Frequent Flyer Thomas Stuker has just been admitted for back surgery after he complained that his spine resembled that of a United Airlines seat. Doctors say that his hunched over physique would take years to fix with massive amounts of traction, surgery and laying on a bed of nails. Stuker was quoted as saying that the bed of nails would be "preferable" to sitting another day in a UAL seat.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Coal mine.
I don't know how many here fly an average of 200 times a year but that is a lot. Having flown for decades my record was 200+ European flights and about 50 (twice a week) flights from Amsterdam to the US. People I met with a lot actually thought that I lived there where "there" was e.g. London, Paris, New York etc. At some point you become the guy Up In The Air so I knew it was time to get out. That and the jet lag that never left. He did it for 29 years. That's pretty amazing.
He spends all his time in the air. What possible work does he do in the 5 minutes he's on the ground?
Has he solved the traveling salesman problem?
That's one flight every 1.76 days..... ouch.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
He probably got around 160mS (milliSievert) in total, which even spread on several years is quite a lot (you normally get 4mS annually. Up to 50mS/year if you're a radiation worker) (calculation, data)
Isn't that the same airline that broke Dave Carrol's $3500 (Canadian, supposedly) Taylor guitar, and subsequently lost his luggage?
One assumes they need some good press too....
Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.