Recorded in the beautiful home office of Chateau’ Relaxo Florida. Tonight it’s time for that July crazy travel roundup.
Often I talk about the island of me, a place inhabited by residents who strive to make everything about them. Our first story contains at least one resident from the island of me.
From One Mile At A Time we have “Delta Diamond Medallion Gets Engaged On Tarmac In Atlanta.”
Delta shared how a Gold Medallion member proposed to his Diamond Medallion girlfriend at Atlanta Airport (ATL). He’s gold she’s diamond isn't she marrying down?
When the couple landed in Atlanta, they were picked up planeside via Delta’s Porsche tarmac service. This is sometimes offered on a surprise & delight basis for Diamond Medallion members. It wasn’t just a Por
sche waiting, though, but also a red carpet, on which the proposal took place.
After a successful proposal, the couple was driven to the terminal in the Porsche, and they went to the Sky Club, where their family was waiting to celebrate their engagement.
First of course it was a successful proposal. These pre-staged, preconfigured all about me, or in this case us, events always end with a YES. I’m willing to bet that MIss Delta Diamond was in on this from the start, I’m willing to bet this was 90 or 95% her idea.
In most of these stories, the comments are better than the actual story. Case and point
9volt who left this comment, Nothing screams romantic like a proposal on a loud, jet fume-filled tarmac, then going to a standing-room-only SkyClub.
Recently, The Gate asked, Should Families Be Seated Together Aboard Airplanes Without Paying Extra Money?
The article starts with this - The advent of both ultra-low-cost airlines and Basic Economy fares offered by other commercial carriers has created a profit margin for airlines in general by charging extra for what used to be included in the fare and because advance seat assignments cost extra money per person, families who are on a budget but want or need to travel are loathed to pay extra for the privilege — which often results in members of a family seated in different parts of the airplane. Young boys or girls may potentially be seated by themselves among — or between — fellow passengers who are strangers to them.
My simple but well throughout answer is no. Hate me if you want, and send your complaints to travelfrick@gmail.com. Here’s my rationale you’re going on vacation you need to incorporate having everyone sit together into your travel budget. That being said I will give up my seat to a family wishing to seat together, especially if the child is under 10 years old and super especially if I’m flying on Southwest. First, no 10-year-old should be exposed to sitting next to some creepy rando on a three-hour flight, and second, if you’re on Southwest you will more than likely get to drink for free the whole flight. Case and point my last flight from Orlando, FL to San Antoni, TX.
Everyone has their home airport. Mine is Atlanta Hartsfield even though I moved from Atlanta 13 years ago. Hartsfield has great restaurants such as Chicken + Beer or One Flew South and of course, there’s a Carrabba’s Italian Grill where the CEO and I will often enjoy a pre-flight meal.
For picking up arriving passengers there’s the Delta Dash which saves you on the stop-and-go traffic of the north and south terminals.
Well, my home airport hits this month's crazy travel roundup with this entry.
First, Atlanta Hartsfield is officially the world’s busiest airport….. Again. They last held this title in 2019. This begs to ask, what does it take to claim this title? In 2021 Hartfield saw over 75,704,760,000 passengers, an increase of 76% over their 2020 numbers.
For comparison Orlando International Airport (MCO). was ranked number seven hosting over 40,350,000 passengers. This is up from the twenty-seventh position in 2020.
In July Hartfield also saw a Spirit Airlines flight from Tampa, thank you Florida, coming in hot, so hot that the brakes caught fire upon landing and the Atlanta Hartsfield Fire Rescue was deployed.
No passengers were injured and no emergency evacuation was necessary. However, that did not stop panic from setting with the passengers as many jumped up in order to evacuate but the crew immediately turned them back. As most airlines say during the safety announcement, always follow crew instructions.
Friend of the podcast, Willie Shakespeare, once said “What's in a name?” which was followed by some additional gibberish. But in this case, the name is LAX Karen.
LAX Karen was waiting to check in with Southwest Airlines at LAX, when LAX Karen tells another passenger, who happens to be African American man, that he’s entitled. Side note, doing this in public is a sure way to start an S-show.
An unfortunate Southwest agent then asks LAX Karen to move up in line. LAX Karen responds by yelling and making a fist at the unfortunate Southwest agent that asked her to move up. This put LAX Karen close to being “escorted out” of the check-in area.
That’s when another agent enters stage left and tells LAX Karen, “I don’t know what you think this is, but this is not Spirit.”
This was met with applause from other Southwest passengers. LAX Karen gave it one more shot by responding with this, “Every time I ask for something I get totally yelled or given attitude”.
My deep dive into LAX Karen was the 68-second TikTok video, but I’m here to tell you that LAX Karen is one of those people that just so happens to piss off everyone she comes in contact with.
Kids can be stupid, case and point. Spanish Government Prepared To Shoot Down Flight From London. This was posted on View From The Wing.
A teenager on board an EasyJet flight from London Gatwick to Menorca, Spain posted “a fake bomb threat to social media.” I guess teenagers don’t spend much time looking at porn anymore.
In response, the Spanish government deployed a fighter jet to intercept the aircraft making its 808-mile flight.
The 18-year-old passenger was part of a group of 5 friends on the flight and was arrested on arrival.
The plane was kept away from the airport’s terminal, and passengers were held on the aircraft for two hours and eventually deplaned one at a time. All bags were inspected “by bomb detection dogs and bomb disposal experts” while other takeoffs and landings were delayed at the airport.
Side note in case you didn’t know bomb threats are a giant pain in the ass. During my former life I was a firefighter, and almost every Wednesday night some whack-a-do would call in a bomb threat at the local Publix. This was long before the Pub-Sub was a thing so it wasn’t a Subway employee going rogue. But we’d roll at least one engine and one ladder truck and hang out in the parking lot while the police swept the building.
To sum this up, back in my day kids were happy with a set of captain's wings, I guess nowadays the starting point is a military aircraft escort all the way to your destination.
Just because we haven’t had any COVID news in the past few episodes and the fact that I like to stir the pot.
In late July, The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health says at least 400 workers from the Transporation Security Administration (TSA) have been infected in the latest cluster, along with Southwest and American Airlines employees.
This has not had any noticeable impact on airport operations and the TSA has not reported any delays in passengers clearing security checkpoints.
This next story takes a bit to set up.
First, have you ever watched an IG Story or Tik Tok video where a customer say at a McDonald’s or Burger King, gets so frustrated at the slow service that they hop the counter to make their own burger?
Have you or have any of your friends traveled to Europe in the last few months and get separated from their luggage?
Those two things set the stage for Cameron Hopkins. From The Points Guy - It had been weeks since Cameron Hopkins and his girlfriend had arrived back home in the U.S. after their June excursion to Europe — and there was still no sign their lost bags would ever show up.
Hopkins could see their exact location with the help of the Apple AirTags he had placed on the suitcases. However, the bags still were sitting, unmoved, somewhere at the Dusseldorf Airport (DUS) in Germany.
Early July Cameron booked yet another ticket back to Europe for a 96-hour Planes, Trains, and Automobiles saga. A saga that ended with Cameron in Dusseldorf sorting through rooms and rooms of luggage with some of the luggage being located in the airport's parking structures.
Cameron reported that the “Baggage smelled horrible,”. Of course, it did baggage filled with rotting food dirty clothes, etc . all stored in rooms with less than adequate air circulation.
Cameron did retrieve all four of his family's bags and is now safely back home.
So basically Cameron did what a baggage handler with one job couldn’t do…… reunite luggage with its owner.
Here’s the tip-in to this story. Recently Delta had to fly a plane full of only missing bags from London to Detroit in hopes of sorting some of this mess out.
And, Yahoo News posted this - Passengers' lost suitcases were found dumped in the trash at an international airport. Yes, it’s gotten so bad that they’ve resorted to just throwing the luggage away. There is a bit of justification as some baggage did contain perishable items and they were beginning to attract rodents, but other bags contained clothing, souvenirs, and jewelry. And if you check your Rolex or Paneri in your luggage you are a mallet head.
In our last episode, I described my dad's one and only trip that involved flying with a cat.
BOSTON (AP) — A family’s beloved pet cat that’s been dodging airport personnel, airline employees, and animal experts since escaping from a pet carrier at Boston’s Logan International Airport about three weeks ago was finally caught Wednesday.
“Whether out of fatigue or hunger we’ll never know, but this morning she finally let herself be caught,”
Those last four words, let herself be caught, describe a cat perfectly.
Cats are sketchy, and I’m not a cat fan. In fact, if household cates weighed in excess of 100 lbs I’m convinced that 80% of cats would kill their owner. Cats do what they want when they want, and in this case, the cat cared nothing about the family that cared for her, fed her, and even took her on a trip. Again please email all complaints to travelfrick@gmail.com.
This month's dress code violation story comes to us from Live And Lets Fly and Southwest Airlines.
Southwest Airlines Throws Off Woman Who Defended “Lady In Red”.
The “lady in red” was a young woman who chose to wear a red corset on a Southwest Airlines flight leaving Sacramento Sac-Town.
While boarding, the gate agent asked her if she had a sweater or jacket and told her she had to cover up. When she said she had nothing to cover up, the gate agent allowed her to board but said she would bring her a t-shirt to wear.
Onboard, the woman was given a t-shirt and asked to cover up by a flight attendant, but a woman seated nearby jumped to her defense, wondering why this young lady was being targeted when it was over 100ºF outside and many of the passengers were wearing revealing attire.
A flight attendant explained: “She is wearing a corset and this is a family company. Some people find it offensive.”
The situation escalated and the older woman was thrown off…but not the young lady in red.
After extensive research, which consisted in clicking the link Live And Lets Fly post took me to the Lady In Red’s Tik Tok page aka. Maybejacy.And Maybejacy seems nice, but I have two pieces of advice for her.
First, after her defender was escorted off the plane, Maybejacy should have voluntarily left the plane as well for no other reason than it was a sign of solidarity.
Second, Maybejacy I promise you that no man has ever said to himself or to his best buds, “Man I wish she had longer eyelashes”.
Growing up whenever we’d say something or wear something that my mom deemed inappropriate she’d ask, “Would you wear that in front of your grandparents?”. In current times I’m not sure if that question is relevant.
There you have it, the July crazy travel roundup.
If you want detailed show notes, links and pictures head over to podpage.com/travel-stories/
Leave a message onAnchor, or shoot me an email atTravelFrick@gmail.com.
As I always say, travel safe, stay safe, and thanks for listening.
Thanks for listening.
