Archive for March 5th, 2008

Tip: If running late, don’t land your private aircraft at a golf course

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tennis-stylemonger1.jpgWe’ve all been there. Running late for a meeting, perhaps stuck in traffic, and you wish you could just fly to your destination. (Skipping the TSA shoe-scanning frisk-a-thon, of course.) But leave it to an overzealous parent to make the dream a reality.

This is parenting in 2008: Your child is late for tennis practice. So you fly your personal plane, land it — on skis, mind you, since this is a northern suburb of Chicago, and the ground is covered in snow — illegally on a golf course, and hope no one notices. Like a modern-day Charles Lindbergh, you heroically fly in, delivering your offspring to an informal practice, scheduled before team tryouts later in the week. Seriously.

A Lake Villa man hopped in his Piper Clipper airplane Saturday, breezed above the congested roads and landed at a golf course across a highway from the tennis club, where skis on the underside of his four-seater glided across the snow-covered fairway.

Police received worried calls about a plane circling twice, then touching down at the Crane’s Landing golf course at the Marriott Lincolnshire Resort. Officials thought they might have a crash, with victims to attend to.

Instead, they found Robert Kadera, 65, and his 14-year-old son trudging through the snow, Prince racket and a bag of tennis balls in hand. They had parked on the 7th fairway, just 20 feet south of the retaining wall for Illinois Highway 22.

At least he stayed out of the sand trap.

Nice piloting, admittedly. Spoiled child, clearly. Obnoxious parent, most definitely.

Who thinks it’s okay to land a plane on someone else’s property — without requesting permission — just so your son can make it to tennis practice? Great lesson to be teaching the kids.

Parachuting in would have been a completely different matter.

(Sidebar: I’ve been on that road in Lincolnshire. There’s a great, classic miniature golf course practically around the corner: Par-King. Highly recommended.)

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Singapore Airlines to fly all-business class widebodies across Pacific

For a few years now, there’s been abundant competition for business-class travelers on the trans-Atlantic route, with upstarts carving out all-business class niches to woo passengers away from the major airlines. But until now, there’s been no such movement on the trans-Pacific routes.

But it’s no upstart that’s offering this new service. It’s Singapore Airlines.

They’re converting their ultra-long-haul Airbus 340-500’s to all-business configurations, which means that “Executive Economy” customers are getting the boot. These widebody planes will go from 181 passengers to 100.

Others have already chimed in on the issue. Jared Blank thinks this will be a cash cow. The Cranky Flier is skeptical, calling it a “no-win,” and throwing some barbs at the aircraft for good measure.

Is this a great business move? I don’t know. But my thoughts are this: The supply of business class seats on Singapore Airlines — a truly top-notch airline — just went up big-time. Maybe, just maybe, the frequent flyer seat inventory went up, too. This could be a great opportunity to cash in frequent flyer miles and really get some bang for your proverbial buck.

After all, Newark to Singapore is 9535 nonstop miles, according to the excellent Great Circle Mapper. If ever there’s a flight where you really want to be in business class, it’s this one.

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