Airlines are becoming more honest

It's true and I have proof!  Oh sure they still lie about ample leg room and good inflight food with first class entertainment but then again they always did lie about those things even before you had to wrap your legs around your ears to get into the seat

No the evidence I am referring to is at checkin or to be more precise the bag drop area.

There was a time when you queued for hours to leave your bags at the desk marked Fast Bag Drop. Nowadays they have changed the signage to be more honest by describing the same desk as BagDrop

Come Dine With Me

If someone invited me to dine with them I would expect and perhaps even look forward to a meal.  Not an unreasonable assumption given what the verb to dine means.

One thing I would not expect is a curled up sandwich in a cellophane pack and a bottle of luke warm Pepsi Cola yet that is what I am led to believe by Flybe the cut price regional airline based out of the UK who publish a Guide, no less, to Dining on Board their airplanes.

With buy two get one free deals on offer I can hardly wait!

Virgin Atlantic to Offer Mobile Calls Onboard Flights

Virgin Atlantic has announced it will become the first British airline to provide passengers with a service to make and receive phone calls in the air at 35,000ft.

The industry leading move also allows people to send and receive text messages, emails and have web access via GPRS.

The new mobile phone system will be available throughout the aircraft in all cabins and is targeted at business travellers. The service is intended for use in exceptional situations, when passengers need to send an SMS, make a quick call, or access an email on a Blackberry. The system will limit the connectivity to six users at any one time.

The new service has undergone on board tests over the last few months and is currently operational on A330-300 aircraft and by the end of 2012, the system will be available to passengers on nearly 20  aircraft.

Initially, AeroMobile is available for customers with O2 and Vodafone network providers. The service is not permitted during take-off or landing, and has to be turned off approximately 250 miles from US airspace.

Is it time to change the design of the aircraft interior

Who is it that dreams up the design for the interior of an aircraft with trans Atlantic range.

Why has there been so little change in the basic layout since the Comet, 707 and the VC10

Clearly the designers are accountants who know how many bodies to squash into a cigar tube without inflicting injury but why has someone not figured out a better layout?

Look at the way passengers are configured and design the plane around them.

Passengers if you look come in singles couples or groups and into that category come families

So why not have family areas, why not have quite zones where the lights are dimmed and why not seats with laptop sized desks and dispense with the TV and games console?

Think of it babies and children who want to crawl around the ally ways could be in the bag where the duty free trolly and alcoholic drinks cart need not go

Crossing the Atlantic by Air

As a travel writer I think I may fly in airplanes more than Joe Average and as such my opinion is worth that little bit extra.

With flights to New England, the Caribbean and New England under my belt in recent months I think I am able to pass judgement and grade those airlines that fly the route.

Being British based I have not flown with carriers whose flights do not start and finish in London so can make no comment about the European carriers but even though I am no lover of British Airways I have to award them the title best of the bunch.

US Air and American Airlines are both abysmal with ageing air crews more intent on frightening passengers than giving service.

Virgin on the other hand have the smallest seats known to mankind and the only thing you can say in their favour is that the staff are a quarter of a century younger than the dragons who fly in the cabins of the US flagged carriers

No Laser Pointers Through Pisa

It must be well over 18 months ago that, as a guest of the Maltese Tourist board, I was gifted a rather nice ball point pen which had inside its barrel a USB key and at the end, a laser pointer.  This useful and treasured gift has lived in a pocket of my briefcase and has, as a result of my job, travelled with me on at least 40 air flights visiting more than a dozen different countries including Italy last week when I flew in and out of Genoa


This week however Italy, and specifically Pisa airport, seems to have changed the rules (again).  Now laser pointers are apparently banned from passing through security.  I had no way of checking this of course and am not allowed to reason with the teenager on duty because to do so, plays into their hands and they are then allowed to frog march me away for strip searching so I had to say good bye to my faithful traveling companion and allow it to be given away, no doubt to the teenagers cousin who will ask for his present from the airport.  Next week I think it will be fountain pens that will be banned but I am not quite sure.  And sadly nor can you be.