Category: Aviation

At least it didn’t have liquid in it

Copyright be damned, this one is best in its entirety:

Man accused of telling US airport security penis pump was a bomb

CHICAGO (AP) — Prosecutors say a 29-year-old man traveling with his mother desperately did not want her to know he had packed a sexual aid for their trip to Turkey.

So he told security it was a bomb, officials said.

Madin Azad Amin was stopped by officials on Aug. 16 after guards found an object in his baggage that resembled a grenade, prosecutors said.

When officers asked him to identify it, Amin said it was a bomb, said Cook County Assistant State’s Attorney Lorraine Scaduto.

He later told officials he lied about the item because his mother was nearby and he did not want her to hear that it was part of a penis pump, Scaduto said.

Amin has been charged with felony disorderly conduct, said Andrew Conklin, a spokesman with the Cook County state’s attorney’s office.

Amin faces up to three years in prison if convicted.

UPDATE: What actually happened was that he tried to say “pump” in a really bad Arabic accent and it came out sounding like “bomb.”

Negligent driver, meet negligent management and negligent legal system

If JAL’s shoddy maintenance doesn’t kill you, this guy might:

A 55-year old driver of the “Airport Limousine,” operating between the Haneda Airport terminal and aircraft parked on the apron, was found to have continued driving for nine days in May and June of last year despite having had his license suspended for drunk driving.

Tokyo Airport Transit, the bus operating company, ordered the driver dismissed.

According to the company, they had not been informed about his license suspension for drunk driving. As the buses operate on the taxiways, a “Restricted Area Driving Permit” is required in addition to a regular driver’s license. However, because on-field inspections only check to see whether the permit is being carried, it was not discovered that the driver had no regular driver’s license. The company checks its drivers’ personal violation records once per year, and only noticed the man’s violation in November.

For double the fun, take his bus to your next flight on Northwest!

ANA’s president talks about the future of Japanese air travel

And it looks good for the rest of us, because he speaks of cheaper domestic and international flights out of Haneda. Which means that people in Tokyo can save a few hundred bucks on their airfares, plus the money and time it takes to get to Narita.

“We think we will see low-cost carriers in Haneda in 2009,” President and CEO Mineo Yamamoto told journalists in Tokyo last month at an event organized by Star Alliance. Speaking through a translator, he noted that current plans call for the number of operational slots at the airport to increase by 40% vis-a-vis the current level to 407,000 annually.

ANA accepts that it will lose some travelers to budget carriers but intends to maintain focus on higher-yield passengers. However, this may not be possible. “What we are most afraid of,” Yamamoto explained, is that Japan Airlines “will follow the strategy of LCCs like Skymark and enter the low-fare quagmire.” He said ANA is studying launching a domestic low-fare airline, although it appeared from his remarks that this more likely would be a countermeasure.

The carrier also is concerned that Tiger Airways or another Southeast Asian LCC will be given slots at Haneda to operate discount flights in Asia. ANA is evaluating using Air Japan, its leisure/holiday airline, to counter this threat. In this case, it would look at opening a base in Bangkok or Singapore staffed with foreign cockpit and cabin crews. In spite of the concern over LCCs, Yamamoto told ATWOnline that ANA is asking the Japanese government to double the number of new slots dedicated to international operations at Haneda from 30,000 to 60,000 annually.

In related news, the BIG CHANGE NAA took place earlier this month, in which the South Wing of Terminal 1 opened up for ANA, United and the other Star Alliance airlines. (The ads for it, with a girl deplaning from a hot pink Learjet followed by a badly-rendered Colonel Sanders-ish porter carrying her shopping bags, seem to personify all that is fecked up about Japan to me, but anyway.) The reshuffles will continue later this year when American, BA and the other oneworld airlines move to Terminal 2. Hopefully Keisei will use this as an excuse to change those old and busted seats on the Skyliner.

Oh crap

I finally got my passport back on Friday from the Japanese Consulate in New York with my new working visa plastered in and I’m finally ready to book a flight over, and the New York Times has to go and run THIS story!

Brace yourself for a summer of miserable air travel.

Planes are expected to be packed fuller than at anytime since World War II, when the airlines helped transport troops. Fares are rising. Service frills are disappearing.

Logjams at airport security checkpoints loom as the federal government strains to keep screener jobs filled. The usual violent summer storms are expected to send the air traffic control system into chaos at times, with flight delays and cancellations cascading across the country.

Thailand Report Part 1: Reasons why Korean Air Rules

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I just got to Thailand on a trip to visit Mrs. Adamu. The flight over on Korean Air was awesome. Let me tell you why:

  • Flight attendants that are beautiful, attentive, yet creepily identical – same height, same skin tone, same body proportions, similar facial features, same voice – think Robert Palmer’s “Simply Irresistible” video meets Kim Jong Il’s personal cabaret troupe. They seem to be extremely weak – I was asked to help load a slightly heavy carry-on bag, and then someone else had to help another flight attendant close a storage hatch. Plus there must have been 5 costume changes over the course of the flight – aprons for the food service, plain white shirts during downtimes, and brown jackets for no discernible reason other than perhaps they look smart.
  • 3 words – BIBIMBAP FOR LUNCH! And not just any bibimbap, this was actually fresh and good. Not the best Ive ever had, but it’s for damn sure the best airline food I’ve ever had. The rest of the fare was only above-average, but the frequent drink services and little perks like ice cream for dessert were nice touches.
  • Personal entertainment centers at each seat – even in coach! In the course of the trip, I caught up on the latest hits in Japan, learned that the US was continuing humanitarian aid to Hamas, saw some movies ranging from the awesome Glory Road and Syriana to this tepid Japanese movie about a boy who怀becomes an elephant trainer. Also saw this insane Korean music variety show in which a) a member of the infamous DJ DOC sang a crappy R&B song with a 60-year-old man; b) Another performer suddenly busted out a line and c) An interview in which an older female singer scolded the younger host for using the Japanese word for “pants” (zubon).
  • Ignorant passengers – As we were about to land, an older Korean couple got out from their seats, piled their numerous carry-on bags in front of an emergency exit, and started staring out the window. It took a minute for the flight crew to notice in time to smack them upside the head verbally and send them back to their seats.

    • All in all a great ride and I highly recommend it – they don’t seem to have a restriction on carry-on bags either.

    Bazooms go boom

    In the news:

    [Virgin Galactic] spokesman Will Whitehorn told The Sun safety concerns have come to light for those who want to be launched in groups of eight to an altitude of more than 60 miles for 7 minutes of weightlessness.

    “We’ve discovered there may well be issues with breast augmentation,” he said. “We’re not sure whether they could stand the trip — they could well explode.”

    Now there’s something all those anime artists didn’t foresee.

    Google Earth: leading cause of aircraft collisions

    On my favorite aviation gossip site, airliners.net, someone posted this Google Earth image of Heathrow Airport in London:

    It looks like there are two planes on the same runway, and a third about to land on top of them. In reality, this is just an optical illusion of sorts caused by the way the composite is made: multiple photos are put together, and each photo is taken at a different point in time, resulting in what looks like too many planes on the runway. You can see similar effects around many other major airports. Or you might end up like this guy, who found an Airbus right over his house:

    And the resolution is good enough to read the name of the airline!

    Avoiding lameness in Narita ground transportation: a primer

    I leave in a few hours to spend my spring break in Florida—actually one of the last places I expected to spend spring break, but Ms. Joe has a new, difficult job and needs someone to give her backrubs at night.

    Anyway, Narita is a really inconvenient airport. No matter how you do it, it takes at least an hour to get there from the city. Then there’s the time you have to spend getting to wherever you’re boarding your transportation, and the time you have to spend wandering around the terminal to get where you need to be. If you’re like me, you also have to factor in the time you spend being held for questioning.

    It used to be worse, actually. Back in the day, the trains to Narita didn’t even stop at the terminal. You had to get off on the edge of the airport property and then take a bus. Fortunately, the Transport Minister figured this was daft, and he opened up some underground platforms that were originally intended for a Shinkansen line. (He’s a great guy—his name is Ishihara.) So today, the trains drop you off inside the terminals… but you still have to go up four stories to get to check-in. Hmpfh.

    So what’s the best way to get to and from the airport? Continue reading Avoiding lameness in Narita ground transportation: a primer

    Real-life “super troopers” in Southwest Airlines prank

    Fuerschbach v. Southwest Airlines has to be one of the most fun cases I’ve read in a while…

    Several supervisors at Southwest Airlines convinced two Albuquerque police officers to stage an arrest of Marcie Fuerschbach, a Southwest Airlines employee, as part of an elaborate prank that included actual handcuffing and apparent arrest. This was a “joke gone bad,” and turned out to be anything but funny, as Fuerschbach allegedly suffered serious psychological injuries as a result of the prank. She sued the officers and the City of Albuquerque under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging violations of her Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights. Fuerschbach also asserted claims for various state torts against the officers, the city, her supervisors, and Southwest Airlines.

    The full story after the jump…
    Continue reading Real-life “super troopers” in Southwest Airlines prank