Once again documenting the ups and downs of aviation has me on the run. Was it April 2011, when I wrote, "I am living in fear. I am terrified of my inbox. The ringing of my telephone sounds like the dun-dun dun-dun soundtrack of Jaws."  Here we are 11 months later and the crescendo of  events is even more bizarre than last year.

Eclipsing the news in 2011 that nameless air traffic controllers were sleeping at their stations is Tuesday's story of a JetBlue airline captain who was locked out of the cockpit by his own first officer. On a flight from New York to Las Vegas the pilot identified by news accounts as Clayton Osborn began a rant that included all the words one is not supposed to say on an airplane, "bomb...Al Qaeda...say your prayers." Fast thinking on the part of the first officer, kept the captain from returning to the flight deck and passengers subdued Osborn who was clearly experiencing some serious mental impairment. 

This story strikes me as terribly tragic and eerily reminiscent of what happened to a friend of mine - an experienced airline pilot. One night driving home from the airport on a route he had taken for 20 years, he found he did not know where he was. Later that week doctors found a tumor on his brain and shortly after that he was dead. 

Who can say how much danger passengers were actually in on JetBlue Flight 191 but I fear for Capt. Osborn. 

The JetBlue story, following so closely the case of the American Airlines flight attendant who started a terrifying rant on a flight out of Dallas earlier this month (and the case of a JetBlue flight attendant flying off the handle in 2010) surely means this latest episode will wend its way around the world faster than a speeding jumbo jet. 

Which of course transports me to yet another big news story; Tuesday's emergency landing of a Singapore A380 running, you guessed it; Rolls Royce engines. (Honey if you feel you can't keep up with these incidents, take a number.) Flight 26 with 400+ passengers was 3 hours out of Changi when the crew initiated a precautionary shut down of the number 3 engine and turned back to the airport.

For the airlines operating the troublesome combination of A380 airframe and Trent 900 motors, the much-touted airliner has been like a difficult teenager, one problem after another. 

That the flight headed for Frankfurt did not actually arrive there may have been the silver lining in this cloud. You mean you don't know? Well this is the same day that 445 flights were canceled at Frankfurt as unionized workers staged a warning strike intended to "warn" Fraport, the airport operator to cough up more than a 2% pay increase. 

Labor may have the right idea here; When things get tough, initiate a "precautionary shutdown." Let me remind you this is just the news from today. I'm just askin' please, can we power down to idle for a day or two?

Full disclosure, before last week, I hadn't flown on US Airways in years. Sure, I'd written a bit about the company, some positive posts, some not so. But when US Airways "media day" in Phoenix  coincided by lucky coincidence with an already scheduled visit to Arizona to tour Marana Aerospace Solutions near Tucson, (about which, more later!) I took the opportunity to attend and hear what the airline's executives have to say. They have quite a story. 

Top shelf US Airways execs answer reporters' questions.

Beyond touting the successes they've had in pulling the company out of bankruptcy in 2005, turning a horrific $808 million deficit in 2008 into a profitable 2010 and beyond and notable improvements in reducing airplane damage and mishandled bags, company CEO, Doug Parker seemed to be preparing reporters for the possibility that US Airways may not acquire American Airlines.

CEO Parker, casual and relaxed with reporters

The official word from Parker is that US Airways has a team studying all the issues involved with a potential merger with the bankrupt American. But consider this: He began his remarks to the assembled journalists and bloggers by saying, industry consolidation is not an imperative. It has already happened.  Thus, we are to conclude that if it does/if it does not decide to dance with American, makes little difference to the happy leaders of the now-thriving US Airways and its 11% market share.

"It is a more rational industry now. We don't need to merge. Our results prove that we're doing quite well. We have a model that works in a consolidated industry," he said.

US Airways secret for profitability is not such a secret.  I've heard it from a number of airline bosses and it is virtually the same plan I heard United's Jeff Smisek talking about at the Star Alliance gig in December. It must raise fares, sell more things beyond airline tickets, fill more seats and take more care in selecting routes. Sounds like tough talk, the kind of plan air travelers may not want to hear. Nevertheless, Parker's report is that the airline is doing all of these things.

I'm a champion of frank talk to air travelers. The near-toxic atmosphere between airlines and their customers is due to the disconnect between expectations and reality. And when passengers get perturbed, better watch out or the politicians will step in.


My three flights last week were in  keeping with Parker's claim that the airline is running a lean operation; no inflight entertainment, a buy-it-or-go-hungry meal plan, fees for just about any seat but the one in the middle. And yet every departure and arrival was on-time. The flight attendants were courteous and energetic. The plane was immaculate. Every aspect of my travel on the airline went off without a hitch.

This is the company Parker and his crew are bragging about, and rightfully so. 

In light of this, why would these seemingly sensible businessmen spend any time at all researching acquisition of the can of worms that is American Airlines with its high per-seat mile costs and its famously unhappy employees?  Unlike American, US Airways is flying high.
Really, what is there to think about?

Spend too much time at the big airports as I do, and its easy to slip into believing that behemoth centers of people-moving is what flying is all about. It's not.

On a beautiful, sunny summer day here in the southern hemisphere, I was reminded how wonderful it is to power down by visiting two small airfields in Chile where flying remains true to the poetic narratives of Antoine Saint Exupery, Richard Bach, Ernest K. Gann and others.

Today, I spent the afternoon at the Club de Planeadores de Vitacura in Santiago, Chile - an 82 year old club for sailplane flying. While a steady breeze kept the windsock erect, the motorless aircraft were towed skyward where they proceeded to fly around the mountain valleys and return noiselessly to the runway with a dramatic left hand descending spiral.

I sat in the wooden stands for a long time, enjoying the aerial ballet before realizing - even sitting in the bleacher should be treasured. Observation areas at airports are a barely-surviving acknowledgement that flying is a treat for those on the ground as well as in the air.  

My trip to Chile includes visiting a number of Chilean vineyards; the magnificently picturesque and historic Errazuriz Wine Estate in Aconcagua Valley and the fabulously hospitable De Martino Winery and ViñaTarapaca both in Isla de Maipo. 

Look, I like wine as much as the next gal, but I was really captivated by the asphalt runway at Viña Tarapaca which allows the owner, a pilot, and arriving visitors to see the remarkable landscape of the vineyard and estate from the air before being taken by horse-drawn carriage around the fields and ushered into the tasting room to appreciate the products. 

I know, I know, bottle to throttle and all that. At Viña Tarapaca they have a solution; 18 guest rooms for sleeping it off.

Drinking or not, flying or not, the 18-year old, 2000-foot airfield, on a parallel path with grape laden vines and framed as it is by boughs of blooming wisteria is 100 percent in keeping with the romance of aviation - the good, old fashioned, Robert Redford-and-Meryl Streep-go-flying-Out-of-Africa-kind of romance.

If I'm lucky, this July I'll be invited once again to participate in the annual fly-in at Danbury Municipal Airport, a red-white-and blue affair if there ever was one. It will be another reminder that no matter how dreary and unpleasant aviation news can be, there's a whole other world of flying still to be celebrated. What do you say we drink to that? 

It is easy to imagine the terror of the 130 people on board Air France Flight 2240 on Wednesday when flying at 28,000 feet, some passengers reported hearing a constant beeping noise in the cabin. Unable to determine what was causing the sound and fearing for the worst, flight attendants told the pilots there was an unidentified item on the plane that could be a bomb. The pilots declared a Mayday and the plane landed at Basel/Mulhouse Airport on the France-Switzerland border according to Flight Radar 24 which tracks the flight here. But for twenty uncertain minutes these travelers did not know what was going to happen. 

Even after landing, the drama continued as the A320-200 with registration F-GKXF was brought to an isolated area of the small airport where passengers were evacuated and the airplane searched. Then, and only then, did police discover what was causing the panic, the alarm was ringing on a Blackberry device a passenger had failed to turn off on departure. 

Air France officials were unavailable for comment but they'll be paying a significant amount of money for the diversion. There's not only fuel that was wasted on that flight and on ferrying an empty replacement aircraft from Paris to Basel, but passengers had to be accommodated overnight and were 18 hours delayed on their trip. For their assumed panic, some might file a legal claim against the airline. (Don't laugh, its been done successfully in the past.) 

Whether the airline will try to recover some of those costs from the passenger is obviously unknown. But if row 5 is in premium class, executives may prefer to let the infraction slide.
This question of whether portable electronic devices present a threat to the safety of air operations has been extremely squishy. I'm among the few who keeps hammering the point that  this is an issue that will sooner or later end in tears. But I'm not alone in that belief. Just ask Boeing.

For the most part, however, the message from airlines and regulators has been ambiguous - leading passengers to treat the subject rather like religion. Their belief or non belief defines their behavior. 

We don't know what prompted the Blackberry owner on Air France Flight 2240 to keep the device powered up, could be simple forgetfulness. But I could bore you with stories of how many times I've seen passengers openly defy the flight attendants and then you'd bore me right back with your own experiences. Let's just let it rest with these words, Alec Baldwin.

Readers, you know an accident is never the result of one thing. Air disasters lie at the end of an unbroken chain of events. Each individual occurrence may appear trivial - like tossing a powered Blackberry into the overhead bin. Sometimes though, otherwise benign happenings spiral into chaos. The best example to date is Wednesday's event on Air France. Mark my words, though, it is not the last.

Thanks to Jan Paul Peters for help on this post.

At first glance it might not seem that President Obama and kid-rocker Justin Bieber have much in common. But both men had just a tad too much altitude going through the doorway of aircraft and - boom! the celebrity noggins got a good crack while the paparazzi snapped photos.

Yep, it is fun to put America's president and its most adorable heart-throb together in the same sentence and call them klutzes, but there's more to the story.

Ask the flight attendants who work on the smaller regional airplanes how often their passengers get an owie! for failing to mind their noodles on entering the airplane and you'll hear an astonishing number. Ninety seven percent said they've seen passengers crack their heads, three-quarters of them said the injury involved bleeding, bruising or a bump and more than half of the flight attendants surveyed said they've seen it happen dozens of times.

In the comments section of the survey, conducted by JDA Aviation Technology Solutions - one flight attendant wrote, "Passengers hitting their heads has been discussed with our Director of Safety and the flight attendant management before, but it is another "Que Sera, Sera Whatever Will Be, Will Be".

Photo courtesy Ron Whipple

Ron Whipple, an air transport specialist, who has 9,000 hours flying the Saab 340 told me he lost count of how many times he banged his head on the door frame during his 18 years of flying for American Eagle. "Luckily, I had my hat on most of the time," he said with a laugh, "so I didn't get really hurt." 

So there is a problem knocking around out there, but getting any attention paid to it is undermined by the fact that no one takes this kind of injury seriously - up to and including sometimes, the person injured.

Asking the Regional Airline Association for the number of skulls cracked while boarding got me nowhere.  Kelly Murphy, the industry's media representative said, it "does not keep reports of this nature."

So to quantify the problem, JDA had to ask the folks most likely to know, pilots and flight attendants who work for the regional carriers that are moving 430,000 passengers around America each and every day. Based on these interviews and a lot of what seems to be common sense, it has come up with a low-tech solution that borrows heavily from the baby's crib in the nursery. JDA has created a upholstered bumper that wraps around the upper edge of the hard metal airplane door frame - and here's the brilliant new take - they want to sell ad space on the thing as demonstrated in the company photo below.

Note the head guard being demonstrated on this airplane. Photo courtesy JDA

Now, one would think that given the airline industry's rush to find newer, better, wilder sources of revenue, which I reported in today's New York Times, selling ad space at  passengers' eye-level while simultaneously delivering the message that the airline values the cranium above your seat as much as the posterior that's in it, would be an easy sell. But one would be wrong.

Bill Norwood, the executive in charge of the head guard project says the regional airlines loved the idea when it was presented at their annual meeting in Nashville last year but the orders aren't exactly rolling in, even though JDA is offering to give the head guards away. What the company wants is a cut of what advertisers pay to have their message embroidered above the lowered heads of a half million travelers.

The whole project makes me think of that old cartoon in which someone gets knocked out cold and awakens with a light bulb going on symbolizing a brilliant idea. If that someone was a high ranking airline executive, well, maybe then....

Hogan at an event in Paris last fall. Photo courtesy Etihad

That' was some big swingin' party at New York's 21 Club last night, as Etihad chief executive James Hogan - grin all over his face - confirmed what he'd spent the last few years promising anybody who would listen, the Abu Dhabi-based airline would end 2011 in the black.

That the feisty upstart actually made money after spending it with significant abandon over the first 8 years of operation is certainly gratifying news to Hogan and his royal backers in the United Arab Emirates. It may be considered - correction - will be considered ominous to a lot of no-longer-fat-and happy-flag-carriers who keep insisting - correction - keep whining that the Gulf carriers don't play fair, as I reported for the International Herald Tribune last fall.

Whether they're right or wrong about what's fair doesn't really matter, the Gulf carriers are playing for keeps. This becomes even more obvious in light of today's news from Etihad that is beginning daily A340 service to Washington's Dulles International Airport. It is the latest play into legacy carrier territory after Etihad increased its ownership of airberlin to 29 percent just two months ago.

To recap: Etihad was started by Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan in 2003 and since then it has grown into an international carrier serving 84 destinations. Etihad is often paired up against the much larger and older Emirates, whose home base in Dubai is two hour's drive north. (Call me a rascal, but I confess, it's fun to watch Hogan's ears turn red when he hears the two airlines compared.)

Still, the UAE airlines employ similar business tactics, freely spending on airplanes, branding opportunities and new routes, and they benefit from similar advantages, a modern transportation infrastructure with gleaming new airports, straightforward hub and spoke systems and a location smack in the center of the booming travel markets in Asia, India and the Pacific. Then there is the storied reputation of both airlines for service, service, service.

Etihad, young and unencumbered by tradition is making the most of these assets, living into its identity as a scrappy parvenu to seize the opportunities. Many of its competitors appear paralyzed by the economic upheaval in the west and the whiplash-inducing shifting of the market eastward. I'm no sports fan but I'm glad I've got a front row seat for this match because it is Olympic-quality.

Jeff Zaslow photo courtesy jeffzaslow.com

This is the truth, Jeff Zaslow knew how to tell a story. This is critical skill for journalists to be sure but Jeff elevated it to award-winning levels and I mean that literally.

I met Jeff in 1987 when he was the surprising winner of a Chicago Sun-Times competition to select a successor to the internationally known advice columnist Ann Landers who was retiring. At the time, my husband worked at the Sun-Times and I was a television reporter at WGN-TV. Jeff was at the Sun-Times and married to a television journalist. For a while we both had commuter marriages and we laughed at the parallels in our lives.  

I did not know Jeff well, but over the years we’d be in touch about one thing or another and we had made tentative plans to meet up in Detroit next weekend when I have to be there on personal business. That meeting is not going to happen. Jeff died in a car accident on Friday, leaving a wife, three teen-aged daughters and countless others who know their lives were made richer by the stories Jeff wrote.

Randy Pausch and Zaslow photo courtesy jeffzaslow.com

What Jeff knew that many journalists don’t is that writing is all about listening. In 2007 he heard a lecture delivered by Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch and went on to help him write the book-length version of the dying professor’s lessons on living. The Last Lecture has sold 5 million copies in English and has been translated into 48 languages. 

Jeff Zaslow helped tell the stories of the Arizona congressman Gabrielle Giffords who was shot by a would-be assassin in 2011 and Chesley Sullenberger, the pilot in command of the Miracle on the Hudson flight in 2009. Jeff’s ability to penetrate the hero worship that surrounded USAirways flight 1549 made the book Highest Duty which he co-wrote with Sullenberger an important work that went beyond the events of that day. 

I moved to Connecticut in 1993 and I became friendly with a neighbor, an avid reader and writer named John Robben.  Coincidentally John was a great fan of Jeff’s though the two men never met. John knew of my association with Jeff, so he would share with me some of what they corresponded about. In addition to the ideas they shared about the writing life, John was appreciative that Jeff always took time to answer his letters. 

So Jeff Zaslow’s death is sad news for John and for me and so many who encountered him or were touched by the stories he told. 

Last month, Jeff latest book The Magic Room was published. Set in a Michigan bridal salon; it is the story of the love parents hope their daughters will find. "I hope the reader will see their own daughters and their own lives as they read the book," Jeff says in a video released to promote The Magic Room. Once again, Jeff has written someone elses’ story but as the father of three girls, it is surely his as well.

Spanair and Hungary's Malev are kaput. Like reluctant shadows, Cyprus Airways, Air Zimbabwe and India's Kingfisher lurk nearby. 

The list of airlines in bankruptcy or struggling  with life critical issues would consume my precious word count, so let's just say, "Hello American, Qantas, Air India."

Airline profits worldwide were down 55% in the last quarter of 2011, according to the International Air Transport Association even while more people travel in planes and fewer seats are empty.  IATA's chief Tony Tyler described 2011 as "a year of contrasts."

It is time to acknowledge the era of the national flag airline is over. Air travel is global and the carriers are too. 

There's an upside and a downside to that and you can credit/blame the newcomers in the space, airlines in the Persian Gulf and Asia. 
Even as I type these words, I know I'll be ticking off many of the executives of legacy carriers who have been crying about the unfair competition these airlines present. 

Today Royal Jordanian reported it is cutting service to five destinations and I can't help but wonder if this also a result of the rise of the supra-national airlines; Turkish, Emirates, Qatar, Singapore and others who's growth is responsive to the increase in global travel and feeding it at the same time.  These airlines' success cuts into the bottom line of all but the best-managed legacy airlines. 

The industry's "old boys" can get as torqued about the arrival of the upstart carriers as they want. This competition is not going away. The game is changing and the survivors will learn how to play by new rules or find themselves grounded for good.

My friend and fellow aviation and travel writer Harriet Baskas reports on a survey that shows the majority of travelers think air travel is stressful. Not exactly surprising news, but the results of the HNTB study could help the aviation industry enhance how it interacts with its customers, which I suppose is the goal.

What ticks travelers off? Oh, you know, the obvious; invasive security, long lines to check bags, that sort of thing.
Here at FLYING LESSONS, I'm proposing that we take a glass-is-half-full approach to getting where we're going by concentrating on all the great experiences we have in transit because I know we have them. So, with this post, I'm asking you to contribute your stories of pleasant surprises you have experienced in your travels by air, which I will publish in a future post.

To encourage you to sit down and send your favorite "It happened to me while flying" story, I will award a really great prize - a cherry red, Ethiopian Airways business class amenity kit - to the person who tells the very best tale. Send your story to me at flyingphotographs@gmail.com. (You are welcome to, but you don't need to send any photographs, your story will do.)

I'll start.

Several years ago my friend Darren Gaines was visiting in Connecticut and we were going to travel together to Washington to attend the ISASI annual dinner. Wanting to show him the beautiful beach in my community, I stopped by the inn where he was staying and took him for a walk along Long Island Sound. But I misjudged the time and as a result we were very late getting to the airport. Don't you know, we missed our flight.

Well, 99.9% of the time that means eating the ticket and buying a new one, but on this day in May, the sun was shining over the heads of both Darren and the Delta ticket agent who waited on us. With a drawl that cannot be native to the town in Ohio where Darren lives, he explained our situation to the woman behind the desk and she promptly booked us on the next flight to Dulles, no charge, no lecture, no problem.

Darren and I made our way to the gate, boarded the plane and were on our way as if I had not totally screwed up. An earth-shattering, life-altering experience? Nope, but the kind that can turn the sunshine on full blast for the rest of the day and serve as a reminder that an airline cannot exist without planes and airports and complex ticketing systems no more than it can exist without the traveler.

That ticket agent got that. And so too, did the airline that made it possible for her to push a few buttons and re-accommodate us hassle-free. For this, Delta deserves a prize, but they've already got amenity kits.

That's my story. What's yours?

Send it to flyingphotographs@gmail.com.

Spirit Airlines is nothing if not clever, as I reported in The New York Times back in 2011 when this airline was alone among U.S. carriers in deciding to turn the baggage fee concept on its head. It not only charged to check a bag, it also charged for carry-ons. See what I mean? Verrrry clever.



Now, taking a page from the campaign of Wikipedia, Google and other popular Internet sites regarding proposed regulations of the web, Spirit has plastered an advisory on its home page about new government regulations that apply to airlines and it is urging passengers to make their voices heard in Washington.




Beginning this week, the U.S. Department of Transportation says airlines must include federal taxes when quoting the price of an airline ticket. Spirit's website alert was half of a two pronged effort to enrage airline passengers about the rule. It also send an email to its customers. But if Spirit thinks air travelers feel about their service providers the way that users of the Internet feel about Wikipedia and Google, maybe it's not as smart as I thought.

Photo courtesy Spirit Airlines

The reaction I've seen to Spirit's campaign is befuddlement. And once the issue is explained, befuddlement quickly turns to boredom. Spirit has misread the modern traveler if it thinks passengers care one whit more than the bottom line; "What is it gonna cost me to get from A to B? Question mark. Period.

Impulse travel is an increasingly popular activity a global phenomenon conceived and incubated by airlines that made travelers believe they could fly somewhere for pocket change. (See the music video by three Irish ladies for a hilarious example.) Its a deal with the devil though - a bait and switch that has travelers holding their noises while buying their tickets and boarding their planes.

Like Ireland's Ryanair, and others, Spirit advertises fares so low, low, low, the only way it can make money is by tacking fees, fees, fees to the price, price, price. the new law doesn't change that, it only adds the federal taxes and puts them right up front so would-be travelers can see them right away.

Rest assured, seat selection, ticket confirmation, checked bags and all those other add-ons will still hike up the ticket price. So my advice to Spirit is, Find a business model that eliminates that frustrating practice before you ask air travelers to carry your water because until you do, you and your airline buddies are in this fight on your own.