Flights

Piggy-backing on Tiff’s #Tiffisajerk posts, I never know how to act in this situation. I’m all for letting the person in the middle seat have 100% of the arm rests.  But sometimes on flights, the person in the middle seat puts their arm over the arm rest and onto my leg, …

I never quite realized how noisy an airplane is until I used a set of noise cancelling headphones for the first time. When I took them off after a nap, I worried that something went wrong.  Was there a breech in the fuselage?!  What’s that horrible sound? …oh, the engine. …

One of the greatest benefits of being an elite is getting to board early and getting access to the overhead bin space. Pizza in Motion wrote a great post on why flights boarding early is not a good thing overall.  He was seated near a poor guy who paid extra …

My husband checked a bag on his flight today.  And waited at the carousel for his bag.  And waited.  And waited. The return leg was on American and I was surprised you cannot pull up your baggage information on American. On US Airways, you can use your confirmation code to …

As a frequent traveler, I frequently get yelled at by the TSA.  And I’m frequently doing whatever they yelled at me to do the last time. I used to opt out when I had to go through the scanning machines.  Now that I have pre-check, I’m not constantly going through …

I’ve only been a US Airways elite in the past, and I was really nervous with the merger. Although the US Airways’ first class product is not quite as nice as… other airlines, it was what I was used to, and I was frequently upgraded. I even wrote a post …

TSA has a notification card for people with disabilities so they can “discreetly communicate information about their needs to an officer’. This does not exempt you from any extra screening.  It’s more or a “hey FYI guys, I can’t stand on my own / I will set off the metal …

United has a policy where you can same day change for a fee within 24 hours of your flight.  This fee is waived if you are an elite of gold status or higher.   My friend is a Gold member and gets his same day changes for free.  But lately, …

An 80-year old woman landed a plane after her husband suffered a fatal heart attack–while the plane was low on gas and with no flying experience.  I came across the audio last night and was transfixed the entire time. Here’s the harrowing audio (it’s long, but wow, is it tense): …

I knew how this was going to end–but even then, this audio from a conversation between a pilot whose landing gear wouldn’t go down and the air traffic control tower had me in tears by the end. Between his silent dignity in accepting what could happen, his professional request to …