Unfortunately, the ad headline is woefully out of date (“Many years ago, we sold these airplane slides…”) and the slides are NOT available for sale.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!

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Expedia is now widely selling Hotwire’s hotel inventory as “unpublished rates.”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.

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.

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!)

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)

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.

Col. Buck Elton, who was given the mission to open up airfield and assist with airlifts, says they have controlled 600+ takeoffs and landings in an airstrip that normally sees three takeoffs and landings a day.

Because the air traffic control tower has collapsed, all of this is being done by radio, on the ground – in a place that only has one runway/taxiway for planes, set directly in the middle of the airport and thus making it difficult for other planes to take off and arrive.

Col. Buck talked about how they have to “stack the aircraft until we have space for someone else to come in. ” The maximum number of aircraft that can fit on the ground: one wide-body, five narrow-body planes. and three smaller aircrafts that can taxi in on the ground, filling that spot as necessary. (It sounds like a game of Tetris.)

“The volume is similar to running a major airport without computers, radar or other equipment,” he said.

That’s great work in a bad situation. Here’s hoping that they can squeeze a few more relief flights in and out.

Downgraded: JAL
Japan’s JAL officially declared bankruptcy and defaulted on its bonds. The bidding war for the airline reached an impasse, but will resume now that bankruptcy is definitive.

Upgraded: Your debit card’s PIN
For some time, debit cards have been accepted as a form of payment on airline websites, but in the US, the cards have been processed much like a credit card, through the Visa or MasterCard number to which they’re linked. Now, Spirit Airlines is serving up a way to use your debit card to pay for airline tickets, using the same PIN you use at the ATM. PIN-enabled transactions at retail locations have gained acceptance (and are far cheaper for the retailer than swipe-and-sign transactions), but entering your PIN into a website? That may be a tough sell to the American consumer.

Upgraded: Really big new threats to air safety
Downgraded: Reality
On a lighter note, forget airport patdowns. Worry about giant sharks that are larger than super-jumbo jets and can attack aircraft from deep in the sea. There’s so much to enjoy in just this short clip from the B-movie horror spectacle “Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus.” The wooden acting, the awful computer animation, the absurd physics. Aviation geeks will enjoy the near-slanderous depiction of a “Condor Airlines” (alert the German airline of that name of this abuse!) Boeing 747-8 — a plane that hasn’t even been built yet — bouncing through the clouds, before it … just watch below. Words get in the way.

Titus Johnson, Air Berlin country manager UK and Ireland, said, “Most of the demand for this comes from our German customers – it seems they can’t bear to be parted from their trees at Christmas.” [...] “As our present to everyone, we will carry the trees without making a charge.”

Air Berlin will transport trees of up to two metres (6ft 6ins) in height free of charge in the cargo compartment until Christmas Eve (December 24).

Cut trees only, one presumes. (Tough luck for the fans of rootball-laden trees.)

No mention of trees in their baggage policy online yet, though it IS in a press release.

Even then, I’m surprised that policy permits the transport of trees across borders. Any borders according to the release. Anyone wanting to fly from Dusseldorf to Miami with a tree as checked luggage is unlikely to find a friendly reception by the Department of Agriculture on American soil…

(image)

Upgraded: Knowing what to do when you’re traveling for the holidays
Before you head to the airport, consider this post on five ways to get an edge on other travelers during the holiday season. The TSA has also published an updated list of do’s and don’t's for bringing items through security, which includes references to the infamous issue of pies. Don’t let anyone say you weren’t warned.

Downgraded: Your health in the sky
Contracted H1N1 or another nasty contagion? Got travel plans? Unless you’ve got good travel insurance, be prepared to pay a fee if you want to change you flights if you’re sick. From several reports (see here and here), it’s clear that being contagious doesn’t make you any less desirable aboard America’s airlines. Medical waivers be damned! Give them your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to cough up a lung onto their seatmates. It guess that’s freedom.

Upgraded: Regulation of frequent flier miles?
Senator Chuck Schumer of New York is pushing for an inquiry into frequent flier programs, with particular attention to the phenomenon of expiring miles. Airlines, of course, argue that an inquiry is unnecessary by the government in the affairs of private business. Much like Congress is looking to regulate credit card fees and other business practices of the banks, this could get interesting.

Downgraded: Lufthansa intra-European economy seating
Lufthansa is shrinking the legroom in its economy cabin on shorter flights within Europe, to jam in more people. Thankfully, they’re leaving the big birds that fly across the oceans as they are, for now.

Upgraded: Communing with animals while you travel
A man with 15 lizards strapped to his chest was caught at LAX. For those keeping score, it was two geckos, two monitor lizards (!) and 11 skinks.

(image)

Upgraded: Efforts to keep convention business. ANY convention business
Hotels need business. So, is there any problem with hosting a convention of swingers as a Holiday Inn in upstate New York did? The annual spouse-swapping event, “Entice the Falls” (link not entirely safe for work), featured some exciting events like “Flogging 101″ and a (canceled) body painting party. But how many bonus points do you earn for a weekend of debauchery?

Downgraded: Chrysler at the rental counter
The Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group is slashing its purchases of Chrysler vehicles. Their fleet is currently 76% Chrysler, but Ford will nearly tie Chrysler for new purchases (34 and 30%, respectively).

Upgraded: Luxury in Mecca
Downgraded: Raffles Hotels’ management’s common sense
Islamic pilgrims to Mecca who aren’t feeling particularly pious, but who are looking to live large, may be pleased to hear that Singapore’s Raffles Hotels are planning an enormous luxury hotel that will cast a shadow on the Muslim world’s holiest site. But what on earth is the hotel chain thinking? I’m sure some will find the uber-luxurious hotel an affront to the religious meaning of the site; are they painting a giant target on all the hotels in the Raffles brand?

Upgraded: Recliners!
The dip in travel has been a boon for furniture makers. What? Yes, according to the industry, sales of reclining chairs are up, as Americans travel less, stay home more, and look for greater comfort in their living room.

Upgraded: Spotlights on mileage running
I’ve been known to go on a mileage run or two (though not for a few years now) in order to bump up my elite-qualifying miles to the next tier, but I’m nowhere near the big leagues that these guys play in. Check out this 20-minute documentary on mileage runners, and the OCD spirit that drives them to collect miles and points with a singleminded focus: