Downgraded: TSA
Upgraded: Airports with independence
Near Glacier National Park, in Kalispell, Montana, Glacier Park International Airport is hoping to boot the TSA off its property and replace the government security agency with private contractors. What?? I had no idea this was possible, but sure enough: Under the Screening Partnership Program, an airport can apply to reprivatize security, generally if TSA isn’t meeting the airport’s needs. The issue for Glacier was staffing: The TSA calculated staffing levels based on October traffic levels — when August is the peak travel time for the area. About 15 airports, including several in Montana, have opted out of the TSA’s domain.

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:

In an effort to reduce their fuel burn and carbon emissions, Japan’s ANA, a fine airline in most every regard, politely requests that its passengers visit the loo before their next flight. The more you leave on the ground, the lighter the plane, the lower the fuel burn, and the happier the planet.

Airline staff will be present at boarding gates in terminals to ask passengers waiting to fly to relieve themselves before boarding, The Independent reported.

ANA hopes the weight saved will lead to a five-tonne reduction in carbon emissions over the course of 30 days.

The airline began the policy on October 1, according to Japan’s NHK television.

Although it is intended as an experiment lasting one month and 42 flights, the trial may be extended if it is well-received by passengers and if results are positive.

Based on an average human bladder capacity of 15oz, if 150 passengers relieved themselves on board an aircraft, this would amount to 63.7kg of waste.

…and that’s just the bladder… No word on the weight savings for performing other human activities on terra firma. Must be Japanese politeness that’s limiting discussion to #1.

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Downgraded: Bangkok airport duty-free
If you’re in Bangkok, you might want to skip the duty-free shop. Customers have been falsely accused (better: framed) of shoplifting. And thanks to an apparently collusive agreement between the police, the duty free operator (King Power), and individual “translators,” all working in cahoots, travelers have been forced to pay up thousands of dollars in order to leave the country. “The British Embassy has also warned passengers at Bangkok Airport to take care not to move items around in the duty free shopping area before paying for them, as this could result in arrest and imprisonment.” Absurd! Read the whole convoluted story of the “zig zag scam” here.

Downgraded: OpenSkies
British Airways is looking to sell its all-business class OpenSkies subsidiary, only a year after buying L’Avion and merging the two operations. The airline-in-an-airline is still operating, though, and there are some pretty sweet deals for premium class travel. If you’re flying between New York and Amsterdam or Paris anytime soon and looking for a relatively inexpensive upgrade, this could be the ticket. (~$1230 all-in roundtrip for a 140° cradle seat, or ~$2100 for a 180° flat bed.) But I wouldn’t book more than a month or two out.

Upgraded: Inflight internet overseas
Lufthansa is reportedly exploring ways of restarting the now-defunct Boeing Connexion satellite-powered inflight internet service. The receivers are already installed on many of their planes (a process which was undertaken at a hefty cost. Panasonic is the most likely provider of the services to the airline.

Downgraded: The St. Regis Monarch Beach
Upgraded: Irony
You may recall the St. Regis Monarch Beach in California as the site of controversy — Weeks after accepting a huge federal bailout, AIG executives spent nearly half a million smackers to host a swank affair at the resort. Now the resort itself has gone into receivership: Creditor Citigroup has foreclosed on the property, taking possession from the franchisees, Makar Properties. (Perhaps not surprising if reports of 15% occupancy rates are true.) But foreclosure doesn’t mean closure. The property remains open, albeit under new ownership.

Upgraded: Exotic inflight vermin
Paging Samuel L. Jackson! A passenger on a Southwest Airlines flight departing Phoenix was stung by a scorpion in flight. The creature fell out of luggage in the overhead bin, where numerous other scorpions were residing.

Downgraded: Budget Rent-a-Car’s ethics
Budget Rent-a-Car is still working with Trilegiant, the shady operators who send out “checks” you shouldn’t endorse. Signing the back commits you to an expensive membership in a “consumer club” with minimal benefits — all billed to the credit card you used when you rented a car from Budget. I reported on this back in January. I just received a similar solicitation this week, offering me a $10 check in exchange for a $219.98/year membership in “HealthSaver.” Shame on you, Budget, for pimping out the credit card data that your customers trusted you with.

Downgraded: Airline fees
Another week, another hike of airline fees. Continental, as part of its earnings report, is raising the cost of checked luggage by $5, bringing it to $20 for the first bag and $30 for the second. Also: Delta is adding a $5 in-person luggage fee for bags not checked in in advance online.

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Downgraded: Baggage carousels
I realize that airports are looking for ways to make money, and I admit I’m surprised this hasn’t been tried earlier, but the checked baggage conveyor belts will now display advertising at select airports. Yet another reason to carry on instead of checking bags…

Upgraded: Global travel
Downgraded: Swine flu
Good news on the swine flu front: A vaccine for H1N1 should be ready by mid-October. If true, that could have huge implications for the movement of travelers across borders.

Downgraded: Laptops at airports
How many laptops are lost at US airports weekly? 12,000. WEEKLY. And of those, 1200 are at LAX. Most are left behind at security checkpoints. Only a third are ever recovered. That’s horrible, and embarrassing for everyone involved.

Upgraded: Star Alliance
Continental gets the final nod to join Star Alliance. It will be departing SkyTeam.

Upgraded: Upgrades to Hawaii on Continental
Perhaps in the spirit of joining a new alliance, Continental is changing its rules to allow its elite-level OnePass members to upgrade free on flights to Hawaii. Jared Blank has more.

Upgraded: Traveling like a Dolphin
For the person who has everything, and wants to travel a little deeper: A personal submarine based on a dolphin. Promo video below. Bizarre.

Downgraded: Bali’s public health strategy
While a vigorous attempt to contain the spread of the H1N1 flu virus is understandable and sensible, Bali is taking the notion to a new level:

Upon landing at Bali’s airport planes will be taken to a remote aircraft parking area where the plane and its passengers will be sprayed with disinfectant. Passengers will then be disembarked and subjected to thermal scanners.

However, the Jakarta Globe is reporting that Bali’s Ngurah Rai International Airport is now requiring all arriving international air passengers to undergo a blood test. Nyoman Murtiyasa, the head of the airport’s health office, quoted in the Jakarta Globe said that all passengers arriving from overseas would be required to take a blood test at the airport.

Thermal scanners? Sure. Blood tests for everyone? Extreme. They make United States passport control seem downright lovable.

Downgraded: Airline uniforms
The airport administrators at Nepal’s Kathmandu Airport are taking an unusual step in an effort to reduce bribery: They are banning pockets in airline personnel uniforms. In a few months, expect reports of secret back-room sewing operations and black market tailoring.

Upgraded: Onboard duty-free, online check-in
Remember when airlines gave you extra miles for online check-in? It’s not coming back, alas. But Virgin Atlantic will give you a coupon for £6 off onboard duty free shopping when spending £30 or more. Whoo?

Downgraded: Jamaican sand wars
500 truckloads of white sand were stolen from a Jamaican resort development site in July 2008. Now, it’s going to trial, and other resort owners are among the accused. (hat tip to Veronica Stoddart)

Upgraded: Overview of disparate carry-on luggage rules
Steven Frischling at Flying with Fish has compiled a great list of 65 airlines’ carry-on baggage restrictions. Be sure to check the rules before your next flight.

Upgraded: Cruises with a theme
Downgraded: Pirates; Conscience
Finally, a cruise concept for the bloodthirsty: A Russian company is sponsoring pirate-hunting cruises. $5000 gets you on board, and you can rent AK-47s and buy ammo. The money quote: “They are worse than the pirates. At least the pirates have the decency to take hostages; these people are just paying to commit murder.”

Upgraded: Eclipse travel
THIS is a concept trip I could do: Special flights to view the upcoming solar eclipse. (Thanks, Kim!)

I think I’ve found a new favorite website for travel-related time-killing, filled with both comedy and horror. (It’s not a new site, it’s just new to me.) The Aviation Herald provides short descriptions of airline “incidents” that warranted some sort of diversion, maintenance, or the calling of the authorities.

But some of these are (unintentionally?) hilarious, despite their clinical reporting style.

Perhaps my favorite so far:

An Air India Boeing 747-400, registration VT-ESO performing flight AI-191 from Mumbai (India) to Frankfurt/Main (Germany) with 229 passengers, was enroute about one hour into the flight, when the cargo fire alert triggered. The crew activated the cargo fire suppression system, declared emergency and returned to Mumbai, where the airplane landed safely 1:45 hours after departure. Attending fire services found no trace of fire or heat. [...] Engineers found no fault with the fire detection system as well and started to suspect, that bags of finest curry powder within the cargo bay, part of a passenger’s checked luggage, could have been responsible for the fire alert. Further tests showed, that particles had escaped the bags and indeed triggered the sensors.

We’ve all heard about bird strikes, which, perhaps most famously, are suspected of bringing down the US Airways Airbus that landed in the Hudson River. But how about bumble bees?

Or pirate radio interfering with inflight communications?

How about model rockets crossing flight paths?

Laser beams blinding pilots?

And dozens of bomb hoaxes and attempted (but failed) hijackings. (Even a real bomb, which was defused, on board an Iranian airliner.)

It’s both frightening and amusing. Granted, most flights go off without a hitch, but with thousands of flights daily, somewhere around the world there’s got to be something odd. Those with a fear of flying may not appreciate the humor as much as I do, so be warned…

Yes, there’s a bit of sadness in there, too, as they analyze the serious events wherein people got hurt or died, too. But there’s so much more in there. Hours of fascination, sometimes even entertainment.

(Thanks to Kim for pointing this out!)

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Downgraded: The mile-high club
That’s what airlines need in order to survive the economic downturn: Hookers! “Federal prosecutors in Pennsylvania say [Roger] Sedlak used a non-existent airline, dubbed CQ Air, to arrange sex-for-cash trysts in hotels across state lines.” The thing is, the airline wasn’t entirely non-existent: “According to a grant application for federal funding, CQ Air sought $100,000, which included $75,000 from the Federal Aviation Authorities AA and $12,500 each from two counties. There was no sign it ever started and the federal government is calling it a bogus operation.”

Upgraded: Mile-high club, part deux
Downgraded: Marketing!
Free flights for taking off your clothes? Yes, a cheesy marketing gimmick is giving away 999 pairs of intra-European tickets for those who show up near-naked somewhere in central London. Oddly, for an unnamed airline. I’m sure some marketing agency thinks they’re being “edgy” or “buzzworthy” with this schtick. And yeah, I’m writing about it, so you could argue that I’m feeding into it. But since I can’t even write about their client who’s sponsoring the semi-nudity, it sure seems like a failure to me.

Upgraded: Midwest Airlines miles
Midwest Airlines passengers have long been able to use their miles on Northwest, and vice versa. Now that Northwest is part of Delta, that partnership is applicable to Delta flights as well.

Downgraded: International flights
Cash cow no more… United and Delta are cutting back further the number of international flights on their schedule. The planes that had previously been full of premium-cabin travelers are now flying empty up front. With i-bankers relegated to coach, the flights aren’t profitable any longer.

Upgraded: Weird contraband found at airports
Downgraded: Pigeon welfare
The NY Daily News has a set of photos of items found by customs agents at airports. Most are drug related, but my favorite has to be this image of a man with pigeons wrapped up and kept in his long underwear:

“Sir, your pants are cooing.”

Downgraded: Priorities
A new film being made with George Clooney in the lead role is apparently based on the premise of a man seeking to collect 1 million frequent flyer miles. I would rather see a film devoted a person seeking to spend 1 million frequent flyer miles…

Downgraded: “Good luck” cards for illegal immigrants
Staying on the customs-and-immigration theme… A Mexican man attempting to enter the UK, with the intention of overstaying his visa, was flagged as a probable immigrant, rather than a tourist, when a card was found in his luggage containing the sentiment, “Good luck in your new life in the UK!” The UK Border Agency trumpeted that they were sending him “back.” But the man flew to Manchester from Los Angeles… I wonder what his return ticket read.

Upgraded: Advantage Rent-a-Car revived, in death
Bankrupt Advantage Rent-a-Car’s assets are being bought by competitor Enterprise, assuming the courts approve. But with the ongoing slump in the rental market, I’m surprised Enterprise would even want more cars or offices!

Upgraded: Northwest and Delta mileage accounts
I realize I’ve been negligent in not mentioning this before: You can merge Northwest WorldPerks miles into an existing Delta SkyMiles account and receive a 500-mile bonus for doing so, if you do it by April 15, 2009. The miles will instantly transfer over, but the bonus will take a few weeks to post.

Downgraded: Spirit Airlines charging fees again for buying tickets on their own website
I have to say, part of me loves the gall that Spirit Airlines has. Last year, they instituted a “passenger usage fee” of $4.90 for buying tickets on their own website. If this sounds familiar, it’s because it is: The airline tried this last summer, but retracted it within a few days. In the WSJ, Scott McCartney has this summary:

Spirit tried charging a $7.90 passenger usage fee last year, along with a $2.50 “natural occurrence interruption fee” (to cover storm-related costs) and an $8.50 “international service recovery fee” to pay for some taxes and fees the airline pays to foreign governments. But the DOT stepped in and ordered the airline to stop; federal rules require airlines to include airline-imposed charges that all customers must pay in advertised fares.

Spirit was fined $40,000 but remained undeterred. Since then, the airline has been negotiating with the DOT to find an acceptable way under department rules to charge the passenger booking fee. “We will be reintroducing it in a way the DOT is comfortable with,” Mr. Baldanza says.

Offended? Complain. Here and here.

Downgraded: Missing a flight
Downgraded as well: Airline staff who film passengers
A passenger who flipped out when she missed her flight to Hong Kong, and was caught on cameraphone throwing a huge tantrum, has received an apology from the airline that kept her off the plane. Not because she didn’t board, but because the embarrassing video was made by a Cathay Pacific employee. (Notably, they claim the employee wasn’t the one to have uploaded the video to YouTube, but that’s hardly a vital distinction at this point.) I didn’t post the original video when it started making the rounds, because it seemed to be everywhere at the time, but I’ll include it here for context.

Downgraded: Cocktails as tourist marketing
Thailand’s tourist managers have concocted a mixed drink to personify the spirit of the nation, or so they claim in their heavy-handed marketing blitz. A “Siam Sunrays” cocktail “consists of a shot of vodka, coconut liqueur, a dash of chili pepper and sugar, lime juice, a few slivers of lemongrass and ginger — shaken not stirred, then strained into a glass — with ice and soda water.” Do they really think that a drink — or many, many drinks — will make us forget the hassles of days-long airport closures and monarchist rioting? Apparently so: “Successful signature drinks are one way to fast-track holiday destinations onto the world tourism map,” according to the Tourism Authority of Thailand and the Thai Hotels Association. And the “shaken, not stirred” instructions will make every tourist feel like a secret agent!

Upgraded: Your Starwood points
Every year, hotels rejigger their point redemption structure. For years, the changes have generally been bad for the customer, but not this year. Starwood has released their category changes, and many hotels are moving down a notch. It’s not because they’re now roach motels: It’s because they’ve got a lot of empty rooms. Take advantage.

Downgraded: Your job, or your seat
ESPN sports commentator Stacey Dales opted to quit her job, rather than fly in coach, as would have been required under new network rules. Hard-freakin’-core. Since Ms. Dales is a former WNBA player, I immediately assumed that her height had something to do with the matter. But Wikipedia has her at “only” 6 feet tall — about my height — and I’ve braved many an economy seat and lived to tell the tale. Good luck finding an employer who provides you with the extra legroom and hot nuts, Stacey! (That sounds dirty. Really, it’s not.) To be fair, the issue was equity: Apparently some of her colleagues were flying first, and she wasn’t. (Via, via.)

Downgraded: United flight attendant’s respect for the passengers
United flight attendants on a recent Chicago-to-Denver flight announced, in conversation with the cockpit, that it was time to serve “drinks to the idiots in coach.” Somehow, the conversation was broadcast on the inflight audio’s channel 9 (which I love), normally limited to conversations between pilots and air traffic control. When made aware of the public nature of their insult, the flight attendants didn’t apologize. Stay classy!

Upgraded: Recycling
If airlines are downsizing their fleets, then we might see more of these in the future: Airplane wing desks!

It was a goofy idea when it was first proposed and mocked on this blog, in one of its earliest posts, in February 2006. But the idea isn’t going away: A luxury hotel on an abandoned oil rig.

The idea was first floated (ooh… no pun intended) by Mohamed al Fayed, Britain’s retail kingpin, but late last year, he gave up on the dream:

It was hoped the oil rig visitor centre, which was to include an upmarket hotel and restaurant, could provide a massive boost to the local tourism industry by attracting 500,000 people a year to the area.

And hopes were high that the project could go ahead when, in February 2006, former Race chief executive Maitland Hyslop confirmed that he had located a suitable oil rig.
[...]
There has been no news on the oil-rig proposal since then, and Balnagown estate manager Martin Lynch yesterday admitted they were no longer “actively pursuing it”.

“We haven’t totally given up on it, but it’s on the back burner on a very low setting,” said Mr Lynch.

“The whole programme was founded on the donation of an oil rig, and I think that, in the current climate, is highly unlikely,” said Mr Lynch.

A for-profit lodging business founded on the idea of a donation? Why on earth wouldn’t that work…

(In an ironic twist, Fayed found oil on the grounds of his (landlocked) estate. At least he has a rig of his own.)

But this goofy idea is still bobbing on the high seas, gasping for air, if in the hands of another firm. Morris Architects of Los Angeles has won the award for “Radical Innovation in Hospitality” for their oil rig hotel design. The prefab building units would be shipped to decommissioned rigs, which would be reinvented as offshore resorts. The architects are clearly using the artificial islands of Dubai as an inspiration here.

I still don’t get the appeal. On the one hand, it’s not that different from a cruise ship — you’re essentially trapped on a buoy offshore — but at least a cruise ship goes to interesting and pretty places. The oil rig doesn’t strike me as the place to be.

I suppose there could be an offshore gambling component to this, or a way to transact business in international waters. Any other ideas? And is this a vacation you’d actually want?