Leaving on a Jet Plane...

We expats rely heavily on those jet planes! A cute article on the actual travel part being the bane of an expat's existence can be found here.

Airline service just seems to be getting worse and worse. Although my recent trip home with Continental went very smoothly on the way there, the way back was a different story, with inept on-board servers, a piece of the plane falling off the ceiling and nearly hitting me in the head during take-off, topped off with the crew discussing recent plane crashes during a particularly turbulent takeoff.  I exaggerate not. Which seems grossly unfair considering a regular passenger would probably be arrested for choosing to go on about that particular topic of conversation. At 27 weeks pregnant and exhausted, I didn't exactly have unlimited patience by the time the last incident occurred...although I certainly had more patience than this guy!

But really, what matters is that we get there in one piece, right? Which is why a law is being put forward to change the amount of time pilots and crews have to rest between flights. I'm all for pilots being well-rested. Read more here. 

Worried about delays? This article details the destinations with the most delays. The quick version - airports in India, Casablanca, Orio al Serio Airport near Bergamo, Italy, New York LaGuardia, Newark Liberty International, Birmingham Airport in England, London's Luton and Heathrow Airports. Just FYI - Some South American airports were omitted from consideration for this survey ;)

Air Canada is notorious for being early to jump on the bandwagon for charging customers for items previously provided, but now they are apparently changing their tune, offering to pay you to get bumped from your flight, via Optiontown.com.  Not surprisingly, it is anything but an easy quick process.

Ah, well.  We just feel fortunate to get to go places, right?  Especially if you're in North America, flights to Europe are cheaper than ever! New York tempts me more and more every day and the looks of this new $10 million Lufthansa Lounge in JFK airport just make for one more reason to go... 

Finally, to close on the topic of air travel, has anyone watched Bravo's "First Class All the Way" ?  Travel reality show?

Comments

[Luiz Felipe]

Hey, mrs. DRL,

I'm all for well-rested pilots as well, as I'm sure all passengers and airlines are too. I just don't think it's the government's job to regulate exactly how rested the pilots need to be. And there's also no guarantee that pilots won't spend their extra downtime partying and come back to the plane in an even worse state. And as much as I like flight safety, I like cheap rates as well, so a balance must be struck. I'd rather trust the people that have the incentive to make a profit to strike that balance than a paper-pushing bureaucrat.

Must be that socialist Canadian in you hidden there somewhere aching for some more government intervention ;).

Oh, and thanks for the link below, btw!

[Ray Adkins]

Dear Mr.Luiz Felipe,

I am a blue in the face American Capitalist and I am all for government regulating how rested the pilots are...
I am sure competition will take care of the airlines who use this as an excuse to increase the cost of airfare.
Safety, however, is sacred when talking about aviation.

Regards

Ray

[Daily Rio Life]

Luiz - you make a good point about it being tough to enforce how much actual rest is taken by the pilots. It's pretty much impossible. For the record, I would also be all for regulations when it comes to drug and alcohol testing for pilots. Sometimes regulations are not a bad thing.

Very funny about the socialist Canadian! haha

In my "past life" (you know, before I was an expat princess?) one of my clients was in the airline logistics business and I learned a lot about how things work (and don't work) in that industry... it's certainly not as regulated as one would think and there are many precautions I assumed were taken which are regularly not. Terrifying stuff, to be exact...

So I have to agree with Ray - for me it has nothing to do with government standards or capitalism, rather getting my butt safely back on the ground. It's something that is a lot more emotional for me now being that I am a flight (or in most cases, a few) away from so many loved ones. I depend on it...

[Luiz Felipe]

I completely agree that not all regulation is bad. A lot of it, especially in the aviation industry is very good! Air traffic control, for instance, makes it possible to have the amount of flights we have. I also like that bombs are forbidden on board.

Drug and alcohol testing are great as well, but I don't think you need the government for that either. Don't airlines do it themselves?

And Mr. Ray, airlines won't use it as an "excuse" to raise prices. It's cost-inflation, prices will go up because costs go up. They'll have to hire more pilots to do the same job. And competition won't take care of it, because costs go up for all airlines. In the end it's always the customers that foot the bill.

I also agree that, in the aviation industry, safety must be paramount. But safety is a part of a trade-off in everything you do. Probably a Volvo would be safer than my Peugeot 206, yet I chose the latter, maybe because if I spent the money on a Volvo, I wouldn't be able to afford the petrol to take it out of the garage. So I got the less safe option. Cars are safer than motorbikes, and staying at home is safer than going to the beach, but people make the unsafe choices anyway. We should let them.

I'm not sure on this, but I have a feeling that planes with four engines are slightly safer than those with two. Should we force all of them to have four?

I'm all for butts safely back on the ground. But I'll watch my own. I really don't need the government to tell me in what kind of aeroplane or airline I should sit it down.