Recorded in the beautiful home office of Chateau/ Relaxo.
First let's start this episode with some numbers, 309, 240, 123, and 92 no this isn’t some brain teaser I found posted on Facebook it’s the number of flights canceled by Delta, United, Jet Blue, and American Airlines on Christmas day, Almost 800 flights from four carriers canceled just on Christmas day. Imagine being out of town with plans of enjoying the holidays only to find yourself having to rebook flights along with everyone else that decides to fly over the holidays.
By mid-afternoon Tuesday, December 28, another 1000 flights had been canceled. On Saturday New Year’s 2400 flights were scrapped.
There’s a reason road warriors avoid the airports from December 22nd till January 2nd.
Road warriors understand the variables, the volume of passengers, most of which are not accustomed to the ebb and flow of the airport, the unpredictable weather, this year a bit on the warm side and then throw in a pandemic with a side order of a third world variant there are too many chances for something to go sideways.
If I had to travel this time of year I’d have a backup plan to get home that didn’t involve an airplane.
As expected, the travel craziness increased this past month. For the monthly crazy travel roundup, I monitor, daily, around 6 travel blog sites such as Live and Let’s Fly or The Points Guy. Side Note - Most of the big or heavily visited travel blog sites are subsidized by credit card companies, so keep that in mind if you follow any of the credit card recommendations.
I also follow BoingBoing, TMZ (who doesn’t), and of course the local Florida news outlets.
From those sources, if I see something of interest it gets bookmarked and then revisited during show prep for the episode. This month, I had over 90 posts bookmarked, even with some of them being duplicates, that’s conservatively 2 ½ crazy travel stories each and every day during December.
Safe to say we won’t be hitting all 90, but hopefully only the craziest of crazy.
For this first story, we have to get in the way-back machine to May 23rd, 2021. This was the beginning of the Vaxxers vs the Anti-Maskers. On May 23 Vyvianna M. Quinonez was on a Southwest flight from Sacramento to San Diego.
As the plane was making its final descent, a flight attendant asked Quinonez to put her facemask on properly, fasten her seat belt, and put her tray table back up.
Quinonez responded by punching the flight attendant in the face resulting in -
* Three chipped teeth, resulting in two teeth later being replaced by crowns.
* Bruised and swollen left eye.
* A cut under her left eye, requiring three stitches
* And a bruise in the shape of fingers on her right forearm.
Late December, Quinonez pleaded guilty to a felony charge of interfering with a flight crew and
admitted punching the attendant in the face with her "closed fist" and grabbing her hair.
If you didn’t know, doing anything on a plane that results in an arrest also results in federal charges. Typically federal charges make me think 5 or 10 years behind bars if found guilty. In this case, prosecutors will recommend a sentence of four months in federal prison and six months in home confinement. That’s it, 4 months behind bars and 6 months quarantined at home, like we’ve all been doing for the last 20 months. How about letting the flight attendant take a closed fist shot at Quinonez‘s face followed by a quick hair pull.
From BoingBoing and the department of “Not Everything That’s Crazy Happens In Florida” I give you - Gentleman in a clown mask plowed a limousine through Vegas airport gates to steal a jet to fly into Area 51 and meet the extraterrestrials.
So the clown man believes in the theory that extraterrestrials are being held at a secretive military base inside Area 51. After crashing the gate clown man stopped near a parked jet and allegedly told Atlantic Aviation employees "I have a f***ing bomb. I'm going to blow this place up,".
Cops arrived detained the clown man after which he told them that he had a gasoline device and shotgun in his car,
A search of the suspect's car revealed there was a device similar to an oxygen tank and what appeared to be a fire extinguisher with heavy-gauge wiring wrapped around it and a wooden platform, which looked similar to a possible explosive device.
There are a couple of things that pop up immediately. First no mention of alcohol, surprising right.
Second, this guy seems stable so why didn’t he try to book a flight on Janet Airlines which is the highly classified fleet of passenger aircraft operated for the United States Department of the Air Force as an employee shuttle to transport military and contractor employees.
Then I thought about all my trips to Las Vegas and I recalled that Area 51 isn’t that far away, so why not drive. The clown man had a limo after all. So I went to Google maps put in directions from McCarran Airport to Area 51 and here’s the result - Sorry, we could not calculate driving directions from "McCarran Airport T3 On Property Stop, Paradise, NV 89119" to "Area 51, Nevada". Tried a few additional starting points, the same result - Sorry, we could not calculate driving directions from "McCarran Airport T3 On Property Stop, Paradise, NV 89119" to "Area 51, Nevada"..... In hindsight, I think the clown man may have been onto something.
We’re not going to spend a lot of time on this next one.
Dennis Rodman recently flew from L.A. to Ft. Lauderdale, thank you Florida, on JetBlue. Rodman refused to keep the federally required mask on his face. As a “Welcome to Florida” gift Rodman was greeted by Deputies from the Broward Co. Sheriff's Office. They spoke to Rodman upon landing, Rodman was cooperative and, in the end, they cut him loose, letting him leave on his own without citing him.
Now here’s what’s surprising about this, and it’s not what you think -
Was it surprising that it was Dennis Rodman - Nope
Was it surprising that the incident involved a mask - Nope
Was it surprising that Florida was involved - Nope
What is surprising is that Dennis Rodman flies JetBlue. Of all the airlines out there Rodman flies JetBlue.
In all my years of travel, I might have missed one or two flights and more than like it was due to weather or airplane mechanical issues, not a rouge hangover or me sleeping in.
Late December a woman now dubbed “Spirit Airline Karen” missed her flight. Not sure why, but she missed it, and from the details here she didn’t miss it by much. So what did “Spirit Airline Karen” do?
* Yell at the gate agent? No
* B***h tweet her frustration? No
* Head to bar and drown her sorrows? No
Nope, “Spirit Airline Karen” got herself arrested. And how did she manage that? “Spirit Airline Karen” decided to run after her plane. She opened the door in the gate area went down the stairs onto the tarmac where she was greeted and arrested by the authorities.
I’m not sure the last time “Spirit Airline Karen” flew, but gone are the days of staircases from the tarmac up to the service door on a plane. I’d love to know how “Spirit Airline Karen,” thought she was going to get inside the actual plane. What she did get was a nice set of handcuffs accompanied by people in the gate area applauding the arrest.
It’s not often we talk about selflessness during the crazy travel roundup. But this next story gives us just that - Traveler tests positive for COVID mid-flight, quarantines in airplane bathroom for five hours.
Marisa Fotieo, a school teacher from Michigan, was flying to Iceland when she began feeling unwell. She took a rapid test in the bathroom and, yep, she was positive for COVID-19. So Fotieo stayed in the bathroom for the remainder of the five-hour flight.
"There are 150 people on the flight, and my biggest fear was giving it to them," she said.
What makes this even more selfless is that one of the flight attendants provided food and drinks, and "constantly checked" on her.
Once in Iceland Fotieo was forced to quarantine but the flight attendant sent her flowers and a little Christmas tree with lights so she could have a glimmer of holiday joy.
So yes there is hope……
Spend much time hanging around me at some point you’ll hear me utter something along the lines of…. “There’s a kink for everyone”. And there is. If you’re into jumper cables and Crisco more than likely you’re not alone and there’s probably a sub-Reddit for your kink.
I find weird and kinky stuff on the internet all the time and it’s rare that much of it surprises me. I just hope someone erases my search history if I happen to meet an untimely demise.
These next few snippets concentrate on just a few of those kinks.
December opened up with this headline - Woman reportedly breastfed her cat on a flight to Atlanta.
And don’t forget the accompanying Tik-Tok video.
The travel blogosphere exploded over this and the comments were pure gold -
You Mad Bro? Posted - I know the cat lady. This was just a misunderstanding. It wasn’t a cat. It was her baby. It’s just so ugly the only way TSA would let it through is if she kept it in a cage. The father’s no prize either.
Godisfake posted - Just be thankful it was not the cat breastfeeding the woman.
My first thought was the scene from Meet The Faukers - Greg Fauker - played by Ben Stiller and Jack Byrnes played by Robert DeNiro.
Greg Focker: Oh, you can milk just about anything with nipples.
Jack Byrnes:I have nipples, Greg, could you milk me?
Then my BS detector went off, and as usual, the BS detector was spot on as this turned out to be a parody video created by the Facebook page The Gooch.
The Gooch accomplished its mission as it took almost 2 weeks before most of the travel blogosphere realized that it was indeed fake.
As we all know masks have to be worn when you are on a plane, it’s federally mandated. My legal knowledge is loosely based on the internet and conversations that take place in hotel bars. But, I don’t believe that mandate specifies a specific mask type, just that the mask covers your nose and mouth.
So what does all this mean, it means that someone will eventually test what the definition of “mask” really is. And who better to test that definition than a Florida Man. I give to you - Florida man pulled from flight for wearing women's underwear in lieu of a mask.
Adam Jenne of Cape Coral, Florida is angry because he was pulled off a United Airlines flight for wearing women's underwear on his face instead of a mask as the airline requires. Apparently, other passengers walked off the plane in solidarity. This I don’t understand
Now, this isn't Jenne's first underwear rodeo either—he told Florida Fox4 that he was previously booted off a Delta flight for the same thing.
"There's nothing more absurd than having to wear a mask until I get to cruising altitude so that I can order Tito's by the double and snack on pretzels, and illustrating that absurdity by wearing women's underwear on my face sounds perfect," said Jenne…]
Jenne said he still feels like he was in the right.
I for one appreciate Jenne’s mask choice, red sheer thong, and once the mask mandate is lifted Jenne will have a nice gift for the lady in his life.
You often hear me talk about the Southwest companion pass, well this next story gives you a new definition of the word companion. Man leads woman onto a Southwest flight…. On a leash.
Nope, that wasn’t the opening line to a joke this really happened. Be it staged or not it happened. There’s not much detail on this, there wasn’t any incident, no one appeared to say anything about it, and both were wearing masks.
Like I said earlier, there’s a kink for everyone. To sum it up, “Not my circus, not my monkeys.”
There you have it, the December crazy travel roundup. The next episode will be my 2022 travel resolutions.
If you want detailed show notes, links and pictures head over to podpage.com/travel-stories/
Leave a message on Anchor, or shoot me an email at TravelFrick@gmail.com.
As I always say, travel safe, stay safe, and thanks for listening.
