Tag: airports

I’d gladly take an ass-beating for a few mil

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I think that unless you’re living under a rock, most people have heard now about the United Airlines debacle where a passenger had his seat “re-accommodated” which was apparently corporate-ese for “physically removing from aircraft by means of yanking them out of seat, bashing their face into an arm rest and dragging a bloodied body away while numerous other passengers video record the whole incident and let it go viral on social media.”

Yes, it’s truly horrific that this happened, yes, United Airlines has found seemingly the worst possible combination of choices in a field of many, and yes, United Airlines is already in the fallout of a lifetime having lost at the time I’m writing this nearly $1.4 billion in lost stocks, sales, partnerships and other financial channels, with the number continuing to escalate as the saga continues.   By now, we’ve seen the videos, we’ve read the crocodile-teared apologies, and seen the endless litany of hilarious memes.  We’ve all got our opinions about United Airlines, and our own thoughts on the story that we know of.

Most are appalled by United, and probably would make a conscious effort to avoid them moving forward, and that’s completely understandable.  Lots of people feel bad for the man, basically targeted, assaulted and basically a sacrificial lamb in this captivating story; it also doesn’t help that he was a minority, although imagine how much worse would this story be if he were black?  And just about everyone by now has had a good laugh at a meme about the situation that has probably created way more awareness to the story than there would’ve been from people who simply pay attention to the news.

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Visiting the Motherland, with my Mother

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

If I didn’t mention it before, the trip to Korea was one that I took with my mother.  The idea was that way back when, my dad and sister went together, so it seemed like a suitable idea that this would be a mother and son trip.  My mom had recently retired, so she had nothing but time on her hands, and from my perspective, this was a trip that had to be done sooner rather than later, because I didn’t want to live my life with the regret of never going to Korea with my mom while she was still physically able to.  Not to mention, my mom had never been back since I’d been alive, so it was literally 38 years since she’d last been in Korea.

This is without question one of the best ideas I’d had in my life, and although I’m not going to sugar-coat and say it was a perfect trip, I don’t have any regrets about going to Korea with my mom one bit.  It was meaningful and memorable, and I’m glad to be able to say that my mom was there the first time I visited the Motherland.

I let my mom drive when it came to planning for the trip, since my initial idea of planning a trip to see the places of her childhood and upbringing seemed to fall on deaf ears, so it ended up with us having a few days in Seoul on our own, but then ultimately going on a multi-city tour group through the rest of Korea, back-ended with two more days in Seoul before coming home.  I’m not going to pretend like I was pleased with the idea of being on a guided tour, since typically I prefer to be in control of my own destiny, but it was what my mother had wanted, and she didn’t seem to understand that I was quite the competent planner on my own.

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I’m with the angry Italian

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Fat story made thin: Italian man angry with Emirates airlines because they’re not doing anything to dissuade his dissatisfaction with having to have sat next to a morbidly obese man on a nine-hour flight

I’m aware that this story is one that of an insufferable, apparently entitled individual, trying to cash in on a no-win situation from Emirates, but I’m also not a perfect person either.  I’m on the side of the angry Italian.

I fly a lot, as my six readers very well know.  I’ve enjoyed the luxury of the occasional surprise upgrade when I played the standby game, but way more often than naught, I’ve suffered the indignity of having to sit next to undesirable people.  And I wish it were the people with babies, or the blabber mouths, or the people that often come to mind when people think of undesirable seat neighbors.  No, I’m talking about the people who don’t know what a shower is, or had been living at the airport for days, or sometimes both.  People who try to dominate the armrests or any and as much space as they can, because they’re just that selfish or greedy.  

And then there’s the fat people.

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Thoughts on Europe and cruising

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Admittedly, I thought I’d be way worse off coming back from Europe after basically a two-week vacation.  Sure, the 22-hour trek that saw two layovers in New York and Detroit before getting back to Atlanta was pretty tiring, but I didn’t have that much difficulty in not using my recovery day, and instead returning to work immediately the next day.  Frankly, after two weeks unpaid, it seemed like the smart thing to do.

So Europe.  So cruise.  Long story short is that the vacation was pretty good, and I had a good time traversing various cities in Italy, and my first cruise ever was pretty enjoyable overall.  Maybe not as much relaxation as I’d hoped to have gotten, but I was able to sleep in for a few mornings, and those were quite pleasant.  Alternatively, there were a lot of mornings that were on the schedules of either shore excursions or travel deadlines, leading to some jam-packed agendas at times too.

Among the things learned about planning a destination vacation as such, is that in the future, shelling out a little bit of cash in order to have some travel insurance might not be such a bad idea.  Mythical gf and I got a pretty decent flight to Europe, but it was pockmarked with several layovers both to-and-from the states, and in the months approaching our trip, there were at least more than one deal that showed up with fewer layovers at a comparable price that made us come to the conclusion that perhaps there is some merit to timing.

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I don’t know how people do it

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Lately, I’ve been feeling kind of depressed and stressed about how I haven’t really traveled or seen some particular friends or family in quite some time.  Sure, I had a trip to Disney back in April, but almost at no point of that trip was I really able to sit back, relax, and kind of do nothing.  I’m not saying nothing is all I want to do, but there are times that I feel that I’m pining for occasions where there is nothing really on the agenda but loose ideas, and little or no stress if any of these ideas are acted upon.  But really, I’m finding myself missing people I used to see on a pretty regular basis, and the number of days, weeks and months since I’d seen them grows, leading to this perpetual cycle of feeling detached.

What isn’t helping the entire conundrum is the fact that I no longer have the ability to up and hop on any flight as I used to, and which is serving as impetus for writing this in the first place.  I’d like to travel and visit some friends or family pretty soon, but simply put, I just can’t afford it, or find myself being able to stomach the cost of flying, without privileges.

Frankly, I don’t know how people do this, planning so far ahead in advance to get reasonable rates, and looking at $600+ round trips if one actually wanted to make a last-minute flight somewhere.  I don’t know how people do this.

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Love it

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

TL:DR: Uzbekistan Airlines announces new policy that involves weighing passengers.

As someone who has missed a flight before, because the aircraft reached weight capacity before I could even set foot on it, I’m okay with this.  I’m not just okay with this, I really, really love this idea.

As much flack as Uzbekistan gets for being basically a third-world country out in the middle of nowhere, where nobody would even know its name if not for Borat, their national airline sure did something progressive that I wish the rest of the world would consider, but obviously will not, for an obvious myriad of reasons.

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These things exist??

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Impetus: A United flight going from Newark to Denver has to make an emergency stop in Chicago, to remove two unruly passengers from the aircraft.  The two passengers, seated one behind the other, had an altercation that stemmed from the rear passenger applying “Knee Defender” clamps, which prevent the seat ahead from being able to recline, and the front passenger taking objection to being incapable of reclining.  It culminated with front passenger throwing a cup of water in the face of rear passenger, before the flight was forced to land in Chicago to remove both from the aircraft.

Never mind the story about the altercation, the takeaway from this entire story for me is that something like Knee Defenders actually exist.  And I fucking love it.

Obviously, this is because I fly more than your average non-business traveler, and I’ve had more than my fair share of getting the one person on the entire flight who decides that they have to recline their seat.  Seriously, there will be times where I get an entire row to myself, so I decide to spread out a little bit, and the person in front of me has the exact same idea, but has to make sure that they’re in the seat in front of me.  As soon as the ding indicating that we’ve reached cruising altitude is heard, the seat plops back crudely, and if my leg is crossed, or the tray is down, it’s an unpleasant sensation of having something appear to fall into your lap.

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