I know you heard about Alaska Airlines and me! When they stold my brother’s camera!!

I emailed them to no end– and I called them to no end at the Seattle Corporate office- they sent my brother a voucher for $200.00 to shut me up!

And you heard how the Seattle Airport lost Ken— literally lost him– they were supposed to watch him (he was in a wheel chair) as I went to get the luggage and find my brother. I came back and he was gone- I ran through more security lines faster than any Olympic runner with people running behind me telling me I couldn’t go through these security lines– I threatened law suits left and right!!! After 45 minutes, and everyone in the whole airport looking for him, they found him! He was sitting in an office-

Now- when we travel, I never leave his side! Lesson learned here!

true stories!

When we were coming back last year we weren’t told that our bagage would automatically be transfered from one plane to another, so we went down to collect it and were waiting ages and hardly any bags came onto the turnstile. Other than that out flights on AA were all great. All of them arrived early.

We once had our luggage lost on a flight to Amsterdam, i think it was with British Airways, but they had a guy deliver the bags to our hotel.

I’m not going to be flying Virgin Atlantic, i’ve never heard anything good about them, and i found them to be more expensive than AA.

P.S. Some truth to this-

The wheel that squeaks the loudest is the one that gets the grease.

that’s the way it is on the farm susan….squeaky wheels DO get greased!

I’ve only flown twice, both on AA…never had a problem.
They were very accommodating when I needed to stay another week, and were very nice about changing my round trip ticket dates.

A friend flies every year from PA to KS, has for about 12 yrs (i think), she usually flies AA through Harrisburg, PA to Chicago to KC. She has never had a problem either. Although they did gouge her once for her bag being too heavy.

Adam you could be a poster child for how airlines should NOT be!! *L*

I supposed that torn bag is the one you replaced the other south america torn bag with?

Adam—

Do you need for me to do the emailing for you? I am your Personal Assistant~ so they would think!

Patty: when my bags were too heavy the AA guy didn’t mind that they were 1 or 2 lb too much, but the one that was 10lb just told me to move some of the items to the lighter bag.

She only brings one bag max…and of course shops while she is here.
I think they charged her more than $50 extra…but i dont remember what the weight diff was.

Patty: i’m going to take a smaller bag inside my bigger bag next time i visit America.

http://www.bohemian.com/bohemian/04.02.08/features-0814.html

Ab Pirates
With poachers stealing an estimated 250,000 red abalone a year, will populations north of the Golden Gate disappear?

By Alastair Bland

April is here, and for those who move like a snail, go wonderfully with butter in a hot skillet and can be legally harvested through November, abalone season is not the highlight of the calendar.

But for the nearly 40,000 recreational divers in California who pursue the big snails, spring, summer and fall are among the holiest times of the year. Along our craggy, kelpy North Coast thrives the most tenacious population of red abalone anywhere in the animal’s West Coast range.

The creature’s presence fuels many a road trip each season; economic stimulus in otherwise sleepy towns; its own festival in Mendocino each October; and one of the state’s most important recreational fisheries. The largest species of abalone in the world, Haliotis rufescens lives alongside six other species of Haliotis. The red abalone, though, is highly attractive for both its abundance and its high meat-to-shell weight ratio. It is also the only one that can be legally taken today.

The red abalone occurs naturally from Oregon to Baja California, from the tide pools to depths of more than a hundred feet. The good news is that, by many accounts, numbers seem to be holding relatively steady north of Marin. The bad news? Poaching is almost out of control. Department of Fish and Game (DFG) authorities estimate that only one lawless diver in 20 is apprehended, and the illegal harvest each year accounts for an estimated quarter-million abalone, making the total annual take somewhere around half a million individuals, which may or may not be a sustainable level. No one yet knows for sure.

Curiously, one of the greater threats to the fishery, say many law-abiding divers, could be restrictions on the recreational harvest. Shrinking legal bag limits and yearly quotas as well as the looming Marine Life Protection Act may eventually discourage legal divers, leaving the lonesome North Coast an unguarded poacher playground.

Today, abalone are entirely protected south of the Golden Gate Bridge, and there is almost no poaching because there are almost no abalone. On the North Coast, though, the official season begins on April 1 and runs through November, with July a month of hiatus. During the seven months of harvest, throngs of divers overtake Salt Point State Park and regions beyond. Holding their breath without scuba gear, as the law requires, these divers pry thousands of abalone from subsurface rocks while generating some $14 million annually into seaside communities, where they rent gear, buy lunch and fill up on gas.

The abalone limit is strictly enforced at three per day per person, and 24 per year, with a minimum size limit of seven inches across the shell. Divers are required by law to document their catch on state-issued punch cards and return the slips at the season’s end. For 2006, DFG records show a total tally of more than 264,000 red abalone harvested. The previous year, divers took 235,000. Prior to 2002, when the limit was four per day and 100 per year, divers harvested over 700,000 per year.

Wildlife Crimes Pay
Poaching is more difficult to get an accurate handle on. Most poachers sell their “abs” door to door, to friends and to neighbors. Most avoid the restaurant circuit, as paper trails, secret informants and occasional inspections make doing business at licensed establishments risky. The price of a single abalone runs almost $100. For many people, the potential monetary gain of selling a few dozen abalone outweighs the prospect of getting caught, which may result in several thousand dollars in fines and perhaps a month in jail; the higher end of the court system is known for being rather gentle on poachers.

“We just don’t feel that the punishments that poachers receive are strong enough,” says Steve Martarano, spokesman for the DFG. “We’d like to get it up to a felony or felony conspiracy when there are two or more people involved, but now it’s a misdemeanor in most cases. We can recommend a charge after we make a bust, but it’s ultimately up to the DA, and they’ve often got other priorities than wildlife crimes. They might see a guy who had six abalone and say, ‘Big deal.’”

There is every reason to take poaching seriously. Since 1997, state law has protected the species from any and all take south of the Golden Gate Bridge, but the slow-growing creatures, which may take over 12 years to reach the minimum size limit, have yet to rebound.

A quick, amateur survey of the seafloor anywhere south of Marin County will reveal the devastation that overharvesting can wreak upon abalone populations. Just a few decades ago, the animals littered the bottom, spilling out of crevices and sprawling over the tidal zones, and robust commercial and recreational industries thrived. Today, from the Golden Gate Bridge south, to see a large red abalone, even 30 feet under water, is a rare occasion. The big snails have declined at the hands of divers and sea otters, though small pockets of productivity in the Channel Islands host above-average densities.

Otters & Scattershot
Abalone may never recover in some regions. According to DFG senior biologist Ian Taniguchi, because of the presence of sea otters along the Central Coast, abalone diving there is likely a figment of the past.

“We have essentially no hopes for seeing a fishery within range of the sea otter. Wherever there are otters, they pretty much preclude any harvest of shellfish by humans.”

The predators’ numbers have steadily climbed since fur hunters nearly wiped them out in the 18th and 19th centuries, and they keep abalone at very low numbers between the Big Sur and San Mateo coasts. In 1987, the state began a relocation effort of sea otters to the Channel Islands, then halted the plan in 1990 due in part to fishermen’s arguments that the mammals would crush the recovering abalone population. The cause for concern is valid.

A 1994 report revealed that the red abalone population on parts of the Central Coast crashed by 84 percent within six years of sea otters’ reappearance in the area. The abalone density eventually stabilized as a furtive crevice-dwelling population just 7 percent of the estimated 1965 population. Along the North Coast, the sea otter has never recovered after the fur-trade slaughter, and the dense numbers of abalone that we see today, says Taniguchi, represent an artificial situation.

In southern regions, a major impediment to the recovery of red abalone is the inefficient nature of their reproduction. Abalone are “broadcast spawners,” meaning that males and females send out respective clouds of sperm and eggs. Biologists have determined that if abalone live at too low a density, their clouds of spawn will often dissipate into the blue before any eggs are fertilized, and the DFG considers 2,000 abalone per hectare to be the “minimum viable population” size. At numbers below this critical mass, reproduction success tails off dramatically.

ARM & Abs
The total population of red abalone is uncalculated, though periodic surveys provide snapshots of the creature’s health. Department of Fish and Game associate biologist Jerry Kashiwada says that he and several other state scuba divers survey eight “index sites” in Sonoma and Mendocino counties every few years.

Per site, the biologists scan 36 seafloor transects of 30 meters by 2 meters, and the density of snail per square meter has not dropped measurably over time, even in popular dive spots. The population seems to be holding at approximately 0.7 per square meter, or 7,000 per hectare, though Kashiwada has seen isolated spots where the animals are packed 10 to the square meter. Meanwhile, the DFG considers 6,600 red abalone per hectare to compose a “minimum sustainable fishery” density.

At San Miguel Island off of Santa Barbara, local surveys have tallied up abalone densities at just 1,000 to 1,600 per hectare, far less than the optimum critical mass. Yet a growing number of voices, mostly commercial urchin divers and former commercial abalone divers, are arguing for reopening a limited commercial harvest. Milo Vukovich, president of the Sonoma County Abalone Network (SCAN), a nonprofit founded in 1995 which dedicates itself to the preservation and restoration of abalone populations, thinks the idea is preposterous.

“The Abalone Recovery Management Plan is supposed to be about the recovery of abalone, not about finding isolated, struggling populations and deciding how to fish them,” Vukovich says.

The “ARM Plan” was implemented in 1997 as part of a statewide overhaul of abalone harvest regulations, most notably the complete shutdown of the fishery south of the Golden Gate Bridge. The plan stipulates that any once-decimated population must achieve the critical 6,600-abalone-per-hectare density if fishing is to take place.

“They’re ignoring the rules we agreed on,” Vukovich charges. “They’re treating San Miguel Island like it’s another country and not part of California.”

The fishery in Southern California is absolutely devastated, he says. Once bearing 86 percent of all the red abalone in California, waters south of Marin now have almost none, while the North Coast’s abalone population, which seems relatively huge today, represents just 14 percent of the state’s historical total.

Eyeballs in the Water
On the North Coast, the presence of the law and the absence of the sea otter, though unfortunate by some considerations, may ensure that the red abalone never dwindles. Wardens and park rangers patrol the coast at almost all hours throughout the season, spying on divers in the water with binoculars, watching from the bushes, waiting in parking lots to check those returning to their cars and conducting periodic Highway 1 checks of all passing vehicles.

But laws are only as efficient as those who enforce them, and on the North Coast, authorities are few. California has the lowest per-capita number of wardens of all 50 states, with one authority for every 185,000 residents. The odds may seem hopeless, and indeed, most poaching goes unseen.

The occasional highly publicized case serves as a reminder of the trouble that can ensue when a diver is caught red-handed. In May 2004, Kurt Ward and Joshua Holt were busted by the DFG’s Special Operations Unit, a force of eight officers who watch for large-scale poaching rings. According to Lt. Kathy Ponting, leader of the unit, wardens searched the boat of the two Southern California commercial urchin divers after receiving a tip, and found 468 red abalone below deck.

Holt eventually received two years in state prison. Ward received three years. They were fined $10,000 and $15,000, respectively. Ward’s boat was impounded, and the two fledgling entrepreneurs were permanently barred from fishing ever again, commercially or recreationally, in California waters. The abalone were too far gone to survive, says Ponting, and wardens donated them to a food bank, a common course of action in the wake of poaching busts if the abalone clearly won’t survive replacement in the water.

But many law-abiding divers (many of whom have entered the poaching informant hotline 888-DFG-CALTIP into their cell phones) have complained that wardens unjustly cite them for the most trivial infractions, and a fine can run $1,000 or more for a single charge. These divers point out that there is a huge difference between one who actively poaches and one who accidentally neglects to follow a fine-print stipulation in the DFG’s ocean sportfishing regulations handbook.

“Ben,” a firefighter and part-time dive-shop attendant at Bodega Bay Pro Dive who doesn’t want his real name used, recounts a time two years ago at Fort Ross when he and three friends emerged from the water with limits of legal-sized abalone. On the beach was another foursome with “at least 70 or 80 abalone,” many undersized, he says. Ben and his friends jumped into their car and hurried up the road. They quickly flagged down a ranger and reported what they saw.

“He said, ‘OK, but did you guys fill out your punch cards?’” Ben recalls. Punch cards are supposed to be filled out before one lays a finger on one’s automobile and must note the date, time, location of the dive and how many abs were grabbed. “But we hadn’t because we’d gone looking for him. So he pulled us over and made us take out all our gear and had us there for two hours, and while he was searching us the other guys came up the road.”

The poachers were never apprehended.

President of SCAN Milo Vukovich concedes that rangers and wardens sometimes act inexplicably, though the greatest blame goes to the poorly written regulations handbook, which is notorious for being ambiguous and open to free interpretation. The most egregious sections are those that muse upon where and when divers must fill out their punch cards. Vukovich says that the DFG and SCAN cleared up all vagaries this winter, but for several years it was uncertain whether divers must fill out their documents on the beach, in the parking lot outside the car or while still in the water, clinging to a boogie board with numb hands, floundering in the waves.

Crawling with Cash
Big-time poaching is less of a problem today than a decade ago, officials say. Before 2000, there was no punch card, and taking a limit of abalone twice or more in a single day was relatively easy. Ponting recalls Operation Red Hat, in which she and several other wardens closely surveyed a team of nine people for three weeks as the gang made daily trips from Oakland up to Mendocino, took their legal limits of four abalone each, drove home, sold their catch, switched cars, swapped diving gear and returned for another round of limits. When the Special Operations Unit decided they had the evidence to nail the group on felony conspiracy charges, they swooped in and made arrests. Several received a year in jail, the two cars were confiscated and personal fines ranged from $2,500 to $12,500.

Ponting says it can be troubling to watch one small group impact the resource so heavily, but allowing the suspects to build up their own case of evidence against themselves is often necessary.

“Other times, we take people down sooner than we want to if we think they’re damaging the resource too much. It’s a fine line, deciding when we finally go in and arrest them. If we can get the bigger picture really quickly and get a firm idea of all their commercial ties and who’s involved, then we won’t wait as long.”

Even with staunch guardians as Ponting and her team, the North Coast represents a lonesome, almost uninhabited poacher’s haven crawling with cash potential. Many lawbreakers are arrested every year and fined or jailed, but the regularity of repeat offenders is a discouraging syndrome.

Just one example: In January, Mark Fresquez, a Redwood City resident, was nailed for the third time in less than one year for poaching abalone. The first time, he was found at Fort Ross with seven abs. He received a fine and three years of probation. The second time, he was found in the company of another diver, and together they had landed 38 abalone. Fresquez served 30 days after being convicted of a misdemeanor. On the most recent bust, Ponting herself caught Fresquez with 11 abalone, and she is confident that they have a good case against the defendant this time.

Fresquez, who will be arraigned April 7, may lose his fishing license privileges for life, but to think that this restriction will affect such a fearless poacher seems optimistic. Higher fines and longer prison sentences are more likely the answer. Legislation last year increased abalone poaching fines by approximately 20 percent, but a proposal to make basic abalone poaching a felony was rejected; there are so many repeat offenders in this line of work that state prisons would soon be swamped with lifers, put away for good by the “three strikes” law, and the prison system can’t afford such an influx.

“It’s kind of bleak,” says Vukovich. “If you poach every day and make thousands of dollars and you’re part of a poaching gang, then paying a $5,000 fine just becomes an expense of the job. There’s so much incentive that some of these guys just won’t quit, and with so little enforcement, I don’t see any way to stop it.”

Curbing the Catch
According to a 2005 DFG report, the half-million or so total abalone taken each year along the North Coast is a figure ominously close to the harvest levels that destroyed the Southern California fishery last century. To curb the catch, the DFG has been doing the easiest thing there is: cinching the noose on the legal harvest. Bag limits have dropped from 10 per day to seven to four to three, and from 100 per year to 24. But poaching remains a problem, and the reduction of legal limits may only facilitate the illegal take by discouraging law-abiders from ab diving anymore. For each such retired diver, there is one less guardian watching the resource, making the North Coast waters that much easier to pillage.

“At the rate they’re restricting things, there’ll end up being a lot fewer eyeballs on the water,” says Vukovich. “They could eventually be shutting down a fishery to accommodate poaching.”

Most of the six other abalone species in California waters are all in dire shape compared to the red, and none is legal to harvest anymore. The black abalone fishery closed in 1993. Pink, green and white abalone received full protection in 1996. A year later, red abalone diving south of the Golden Gate Bridge was banned. Now the Marine Life Protection Act is sweeping the state’s waters, and the North Coast will see some closures. Few divers, though, feel that the reserves will benefit abalone.

“As far as I can see, the closures won’t do much good,” says dive-shop owner Tom Stone of the Sonoma Coast Bamboo Reef in Rohnert Park. “The preserves might have more abs, but they don’t swim very far, and you’re just going to have the legal spots become more impacted.”

Vukovich holds the same opinion.

“You’re going to have fewer access points, and that will concentrate 40,000 divers into half the area.”

Surprisingly perhaps, most conversations with abalone divers end optimistically. While the odd cove has been “strip-mined” by poachers, most dive sites that crawled with abalone 30 years ago still crawl with them today. Most of the abs are seven-inchers, but a few are 10 and 11. Among them are the youths, grazing on algae, maturing slowly and hiding in crevices from the sea otters that may never arrive. Though the animals are frequently reported in Sonoma and Mendocino waters, most are just river otters on holiday at the beach.

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Meanwhile, the most powerful protection abalone enjoy is not necessarily the officers who patrol the North Coast, but the isolated nature of the North Coast itself. And by far and away the best friends that abalone have are not the lawmakers who protect them or the activists who seek to halt legal diving, but the legal divers themselves.

Send a letter to the editor about this story.

Adam,

my story was last march when i was flying AA from JFK to TLV via London

Our plane at JFK had engine problems so it was delayed form not 1 2 3 4 but more than 5 hours meaning id miss my flight to TLV.

So then they take us to another jet and let those people who were supposed to get on the jet we were going on go on our engine broken jet lol =/

they told me at JFK that since id have to wait a full day in london theyd get me a hotel room and i was happy Butt when i tried going thru customs they didnt let me out since i was a under 18 or somthing …..

So i ended up spending a full day at the terminal…. they gave me 2 food voucers for like 30 pounds each and then when i complained to them via the computer when i got home they gave me a 200 dollar voucer for a future flight which im going to buying in the next 2 weeks to miami ….

No Indian call center for me

Having worked in the aviation industry for some time, I could obviously tell you some really good (or bad, depending on your point of view) stories that I have both witnessed and heard over the years. But, IMO it boils down to one thing,……De-regulation. Many of today’s airline woes come down to the decission to de-regulate the industry back in the 1980’s. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not for bigger government…….however certain industries need to be regulated to both survive and maintain a high standard of service to their customers. De-regulation can mean lower pricing for consumers initially, but, the downside is that this usually and eventually leads to lowering the bar on customer service…….which in turn will actually cost the consumer more in the long run.

When flying from Detroit to Miami via Baltimore last year on AA, both my fiance’s and my bags were lost. Horrible dealing with the baggage people on the phone….Fiance’s bag went to LIMA, PERU. Yes, that’s right, PERU. After nightmarish phone experiences, our bags were returned ONE MONTH LATER. I had to go to the airport to get mine; his was delivered to the house in the middle of the night.

Here is one,

several of us soldiers were flying from the west coast to the east coast for a month long training, most of the time we flew space A with the military but because this training was important and we had a deadline they put us on a civilian aircraft, Delta if I remember right. All 15 of us are getting on board and we are watching them load the plane, they get to the duffel bags and we are still watching, suddenly one of them breaks open and the contents just spill onto the tarmac, the guys loading throw the bag down and continue loading the rest of the bags, then they turn to the open bag and start sorting through it, pulling gear and checking things out. I comment, that it sure sucks to be that guy, then I notice the contents look very, very familiar……hey, that is MY BAG, I get up and start making my way to the door, its time for a couple of bag handlers to get handled roughly themselves, of course the nice (and hot) stewardess calms me down and she makes a call from the plane to someone, soon the baggage handlers are talking on their phones and looking at our windows..they pack everything hastily and throw it on the plane.

I ended up with missing gear, a stewardesses phone number, and a story that my guys still laugh about.

I forgot, one time whjen i was about 10 we were on KLM and we were given some sandwhiches, and they were off i think, and i threw up towards the end of flight, and was ill for most of the vacation. My parents didn’t fare too much better, but they didn’t eat the meat.

Max……..Rule number one in eating airline food is……..don’t. Eat a big meal at the airport or home before you leave than stick to the canned sodas or beer during the flight. Also, avoid drinking the water from the restroom taps. Those water tanks are prime targets for all kinds of ill making bacterias.
If you have to eat during the flight, make sure the food is thoroughly nuked (microwaved), avoid all cold foods (sandwiches, salads,etc). You’ll notice that on short to medium ranged flights you’ll never see the flight attendants eat……….that should tell you something.
Also, many airlines have a policy that the flightdeck crews not eat identical meals. This way should one get food poisoning during the flight the other pilot should be OK.

Derek………you should have seen the commotion that occured at Tampa Intl. about 10 years ago when a coffin fell of the baggage loader and spilled it’s contents onto the tarmac.

Before someone gets grossed out by the coffin story above……..they do put the corpse inside a body bag before they ship it, but still, it created quite a scene.

John: What about the bags of peanuts?
And the hot food i’ve had on planes has always been nice and not felt bad at all afterwards.

Travel Horror… Gee. I’ll just pass along this one, especially for the guys:

Flight Attendants have been unionized for a long while now, and that means: strict seniority on who gets to pick working which flights; no requirement of early retirement; and relaxed weight/conditioning standards. Now the last two are rather reasonable, it isn’t a beauty pagent we are talking about here, but…

Trans-Pacific flights are considered “plum” assignments.

Get on a flight (Delta, United, Northwest, pick one) and you may well be greeted at the door not by your dream-stewardess-date, but by what an old friend described as “a Grandmother wearing an African WitchDoctor mask”. I agree to a point, and wish they would at least relax the makeup requirements. Wearing that much foundation DOES make the face immobile.

LDG: by ‘plum assignment’ do you mean for those whose appearance makes them look like a dried plum?

@Max

In this case, apparently so! ((grin))

LDG……..plum assignments maybe, but statistics of retired flight crews show that those that primarily flew on domestic routes most of their careers are outliving those that flew mainly international routes. All those long haul flights are “litteraly” killers.

@John

Hey now, learn something new every day. I guess it has to do with lifetime radiation exposure, perhaps?

Max……due to the apparent recent increase in allergic reactions to peanuts, you’ll rarely see them offered on US domestic flights.

LDG……..possibly, but some international pilots I’ve talked to said that the time zone differences that they constantly endure (those that fly east to west, or vice versa) also takes it’s toll over time. One I talked to had a JFK to Paris to Tel Aviv route for years. It would sometimes be broken down into a JFK direct Paris leg, 18-24 hour layover, then Paris direct Tel Aviv direct Paris, another 18-24 hour layover, then back home to JFK. Then 3 to 4 days rest and do it all over again. Other times he would just fly JFK direct Paris and then the return flight 24 hours later.

@John

yow, and I thought my old work used to have some nasty time changes. Do *that* for 10 years of your career and I can definately see ill effects.

Hmm, we had something handed out last year, maybe they were just crackers and no nuts.

I justy looked up, i’m pretty sure we were given the Great Nut Supply, Co. Nut Blend (4 oz.) packs.

There have been isolated incidents of severe allergic reactions on airliners that were linked to peanuts. At least that’s what the passengers claimed. I’m not allergic to them, but I do understand that certain people can get an allergic reaction by simply being in contact with, or smelling peanuts. That is why certain airlines do not offer them anymore.
Apparently, other types of nuts (ie Cashews,Walnut,etc) do not fall into this catagory, so they are still offered.

the whole peanut allergy is insane, there are more and more people allergic to the stuff…I think it would be wise for anybody with an allergy that severe to carry an epi-pen, that is a 10mg auto injector of epinephrine, works wonders for people with life threatening allergies.

John: well peanuts are more like peas than nuts, being legumes. So other nuts are different chemically.

Max…….I forgot about that, thanks for the info. All this talk about nuts reminds me of some great jokes……….but I better not, just in case the ladies are reading.

John: there’s always email…

@All

I need to be out of here for now. Have fun!

@Susan-AZ, when she comes in

Sorry I missed you, will look for you on the late shift.

TTFN
((departs))

Good morning everyone

LDG - TTFN - ta ta for now - Cute

Derek - I never leave home without my injectors especially this time of year. Have one in my purse, one in the cupboard, one in both vehicles. My problem is BEES - very very bad for me. I even have to read labels on vitamins, makeup, etc. to make sure there is no honey or royal bee jelly in anything. Real bummer!!!

Adam: maybe Susan sent them an email as she offered?

adam-

phone records are easy, you should be able to go online, and get a copy of all minutes used, numbers dialed, etc. within a certain time period, the tips is normally acceptable without a receipt, just so long as it jives with the norm. Red Caps get 10 bucks from me, waiters get 20%, cabbies get 10-20% (if they handle my luggage). Those are pretty standard tips and they shouldn’t balk at those fares.

KC-

You are wise, I only have one allergy and its to Iodine, and it is fatal to me, so on my little med-alert tag a wear, it says…NO IODINE DYE, ICE–(home phone)(dads phone) PTSD patient- .25xanax, 200mg syraquel. if lost or disoriented, please call ICE.

My main concern is flipping out and getting lost, but I should carry an epi-pen with me

ADAM,

if you were traveling with an elderly person you woudnt have a problem with receipts … whenever im with my grandma in miami she always gets the receipts when i dont want them lol….

Call Richard Branson —- im sure you can find his numbero via your fox connections or sky lol !

oo and are you coming to Israel for the 60th your Boss Murdoch is !

As a retired airline employee I also have stories, but the worst that I ever had was flying back from Tel-Aviv to Newark as a paying passenger. I was in the 2nd to the last row of the plane and the rest of our group were scattered all over the plane. I was assigned the middle seat and as we were settling in I noticed that the seat in front of me was a 4 or 5 year old in a car seat. I was glad to see that as it meant that the seat would not be reclined for the 12 hour flight. (As soon as we took off they reclined the seat and it stayed that way the whole time.) Then my seat mates came, it was a young couple so I ask if they wanted to sit together, and the said no. So for 12 hours I sat between this couple. She slept alot of the trip but he was watching movies on his computer that my friends said were definitely not family fare. Then they started to talk about stuff over me, and handing the forms for customs back and forth.
When the flight crew started to serve the meal they could not get up the aisles for all the kids running around the plane. They made several announcements and it did not help. By the time they got to me they had no idea of what food was left, whether it was glatt or kosher or regular. I ate some unidentifiable food that was not too bad, but was not anything that I would want again.

Looking back on things I think the worst stories are from the middle seat.

Adam…You are the hottest FOX journalist. ..your WORD should be as good as reciepts!
Sick’em Susan!!!
you can quit blushing now adam!

Barbs story reminds me of when he flew home from PA. Me, hubby and kids were all seperated in seats. It was nothing “bad” though. I was in the front seat behind first class, i guess (have nothing to compare it to! *L*) a mother and young daughter, just walking age, were to my right. Across the isle to my left, was the father and son. The little girl was constantly going back and forth from mom to dad. I’m 5 ft 8 in, so my long legs were always in her way. then momma gave her a banana!! Nope, didnt hold it for her to take a bite, pealed it and gave the whole thing to her! Everytime she went by me, she grabbed on to my knees.
When we landed in KC…hubby asked me…”why do i keep smelling bananas???”
*L* That would be because my knees are plastered with one!
The little girl was adorable and not obnoxious, just sticky!

Comment by Adam Housley
April 10th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Everyone-

So my fax to Virgin Atlantic still hasn’t been responded to….but I DID get an e-mail from a Virgin Atlantic Representative who saw this post on the blog!! WOW…that was a shocker. Problem is….they want receipts. How do I get receipts for tips, phone minutes? I can likely get one for the cab. Or so I hope.

Adam
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ADAM:

Just give me the number— and tell me what you lost. You will have it back- trust me!

Patty—

that was a cute story!

Best one I ever had was when I flew into Mexico City and I was always bombarded with bags, back then, when you could carry bags on to a plane, and one of The Platters, music group, helped me with my bag- doo wop all the way!

Avi-

Do you know I can’t stand Murdoch? He is nothing short of a corporate mogul.

I am only here for Adam!

Susan…the Platters?…who is that?
*giggle*