(Click to enlarge)
A couple months ago, I was in Massachusetts and saw this newspaper insert for the regional discount chain Building #19 in the weekend paper.

Unfortunately, the ad headline is woefully out of date (“Many years ago, we sold these airplane slides…”) and the slides are NOT available for sale. But I still love the idea that a local store was selling airplane escape slides for personal use.

I wrote to Jerry Ellis, the proprietor of the retail chain, asking if anyone wrote in with stories of how they enjoyed their slides. Ellis replied, but alas, apparently no customers have sent in their tales.

Just think of the possibilities. You too could re-enact your own passenger evacuation procedures! Or grab a couple beers and pull a Steven Slater!

Downgraded: 787s on Delta
For those who thought that Delta would soon by flying the Boeing 787, thanks to their takeover of Northwest, prepare for a decade of disappointment. Northwest was an early buyer (in May 2005) of the 787 and was originally scheduled to take delivery between 2008 and 2010. Thanks to delays, that delivery timetable is over two years out of whack. But now Delta has pushed the delivery back even further: Now, Delta will receive the planes between 2020 and 2022. That’s a long deferment.

Upgraded: Ideas for bad Hollywood movies
Downgraded: Congolese carry-on inspections
Headline: “Crocodile on plane kills 19 passengers“… I immediately had visions of a crocodile biting its way through the passenger list. But the truth is more unfortunate. A crocodile hidden in a carry-on bag gets loose, people panic, plane goes out of balance, aircraft crashes. Very sad. And preventable.

Downgraded: Cruise ship pricing
The cruise ship lines are taking a page from the airlines and going a la carte with their services, slowly but surely whittling away at the “all-inclusive” pricing plans that were the hallmark of cruising. Sure, there have been upcharges for shore excursions, but now you have to pay up for certain meals, services, and options. Looks like easyCruise‘s fully-a-la-carte model may not be so farfetched after all. (Thanks, Bill!)

Upgraded: Cross-selling of Hotwire inventory on Expedia
Expedia is now widely selling Hotwire’s hotel inventory as “unpublished rates.” Like on Hotwire, the hotels won’t be listed by name, just by star-level and city zone. Since Expedia and Hotwire are part of the same parent company, I’m surprised it’s taken this long.

Upgraded: The last frontier of domestic inflight wifi
Aircell’s Gogo service has launched inflight wifi within the state of Alaska, for those traveling on Alaska Airlines. For now, the service only exists between Anchorage and Fairbanks, and Alaska Airlines is giving it away for free. It’s slated to be complimentary until the entire state is blanketed with signal availability.

Upgraded: Traveler seat-selection stereotypes
The folks at Hunch have found significant personality and life-experience differences between those who prefer aisle seats vs. window seats. It’s based on poll data. ME, I prefer the window seat, not just because it makes napping easier, because I never tire of looking out the window and staring down from 35,000 feet. And yet, my vita reads much more like the aisle passenger’s. Call me an outlier.

For those who complain about the state of airline travel, remember this: At least you don’t have maggots dripping out of the overhead bin onto your head.

Yes, maggots. Some genius decides to bring a “container of spoiled meat” onboard and the maggots run free. A delight for passengers, and a PR nightmare for US Airways, to be sure.

Video below, and the full story here. For those who may be squeamish, be forewarned. There will be maggots.

A photo from the Intel visitor center in Santa Clara, where they invoke Moore’s Law — the observation that, roughly translated, speed of computer processing chips doubles every two years, while the price moves inversely — toward air travel:

The 1-cent flight? That part we’ve seen, albeit with plenty of strings attached. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the concept of a 3635-mile flight in 1 second.

Granted, the engineering challenges of air travel are vastly different from circuits on a silicon chip, so it’s not a fair comparison. But apparently they were able to shrink a Delta plane.

1 cent, 1 second… but how much is the luggage fee?

(Thanks to reader Steve B for the image link!)

There are ads that heighten brand awareness, make you feel attached to a company’s products, and generally make you, the consumer, confident that this firm is for you. And then there are these ads.

Turkish Airlines appears to need some design help. And perhaps pity. See the images below.

The first is a PR image featured in a German newsmagazine’s feature on “exotic” (!) flight attendant uniforms. (“Exotica above the clouds” … really?!) But look at the plane’s amazing engineering feats: It manages to remain upright, despite missing its front landing gear!

The second is a photo snapped in a mall, with a very unfortunately-positioned banner. The other side of the escalator, pointing upward, might have been a better choice…

(image 1 via Photoshop Disasters; image 2)

Downgraded: Reptiles and amphibians
A German reptile collector was caught trying to smuggle 42 endangered lizards and skinks out of New Zealand. In his underwear. For once, I’m in favor of full-body scans, if only to see what this looks like on the monitor.

Upgraded: Advice for worst-case aviation scenarios
No one wants to think about what they would have to do in the case of an inflight accident. But if you were to survive such an event, make sure you’ve read this guide to surviving a 35,000-foot fall.

Downgraded: Machu Picchu
Sad news: The train line that provides access to the ancient Incan city of Machu Picchu in Peru has been washed away, destroyed by recent flooding. This not only has devastating consequences for tourism in the immediate vicinity of the ruins, but for Peru as a whole:

Whether the fault of a mafia-like Cusco tourist industry, simple laziness by foreign and local tourism companies who slap an image of Machu Picchu on advertising and say “that’s Peru”, or the ignorance of cash-rich tourists happy to hand over money and be taken to where they are told – the result is the same. A Peru without Machu Picchu, despite there being dozens of equivalents across the country, is a country with a tourism industry in trouble.

See here for more amazing photos and videos of the destruction. Also here, for a sense of the breadth of the humanitarian disaster in Cusco.

Upgraded: Kayak’s hotel deals
Kayak, the leading fare aggregator, is following the online travel agency trend and pushing harder into the hotel space. Not only are they offering metasearch capabilities, which they have long done, but they’re now branching out and offering “private sale” rates. Though they’ll be technically sold directly by the hotel, it’s direct competition with the online travel agencies.

Upgraded: Hotel booking advertisements
Upgraded: Japanese business-cats
I don’t speak Japanese, but I suspect that this is an ad for a travel booking engine targeted at business travelers. Or at cats who travel on business. (Anyone who speaks or reads Japanese is invited to help with the translation. What’s on the business card??) The awesomeness of these 13 seconds cannot be overstated.