Jaunted - Tag: Adventures of Link

Feeling Flighty

pbb — 2008-12-29T16:45:39-05:00

After legal wrangling, canceled flights and a last-minute arrest for extra drama, Vince Acors is back in the UK, where he held a press conference to admit he was "extremely naive" about Dubai's strict laws against beach sex. At least he finally made it home: An island-wide power outage on Oahu had airlines delaying flights and passengers spending the night at HNL.

Delta, which is now the biggest airline in the world, is ready to challenge newcomer V Australia--and Qantas and United--in a fare war on flights to Australia, but no matter how many new destinations they serve, they'll still be behind in one category: Professional flirt Julia Allison says it's American that has the "HOTTEST" pilots.

Related Stories:
· Dubai Sex-on-Beach Offender: I Was Naive [CNN]
· HNL Resumes Flights After Outage [MSNBC]
· Third Biggest Story of the Year: Delta and Northwest Merge [Airline Biz Blog]
· Qantas and United Finally Getting Competition [Cranky Flier]
· "Standing behind the HOTTEST American Airlines pilot" [Twitter]

[Photo: Metro UK]

Freezing Cold, Hot Photos

pbb — 2008-12-23T17:05:36-05:00

Snow-mageddon 2008 continues in Seattle, where Greyhound riders have been shacking up in homeless shelters until the bus company starts service again. Refunds, a spokeswoman says, probably won't be given to passengers who've been delayed for literally days.

Fliers are faring better: Portland's airport is up and running again, as is Sea-Tac. Chicago O'Hare, meanwhile, is buckling under the weight of its own mini-blizzard, with hundreds of flights canceled so far. The city's most famous current resident, however, isn't worried: Barack Obama is vacationing McConaughey-style in Hawaii.

Related Stories:
· Travelers in the Air [Seattle P-I]
· Greyhound Riders Sick of Seattle [Seattle P-I]
· Greyhound Abandons 60 Passengers In Seattle, Locks Up For The Night [Consumerist]
· Flights Canceled in Chicago [NYT]
· Photog Gets Glimpse of Obama on Vacation [ABC News]

[Photo of PDX on Monday: scazon]

Snow-cation!

pbb — 2008-12-22T17:29:58-05:00

Hey, we just realized that all our bellyachin' about snow-caused drama on the East Coast is nothing compared to the drama at SEA, where ice and snow are so bad the airport ran out of deicing fluid. Presumably they couldn't airlift more in. (We'll be here all week!)

Portland International Airport, too, is having more snow than is pleasant, and we've already told you about the snowpocalypse in Upstate New York. United and Continental are riding out the storm by cuddling up together, while the people in Oymyakon continue shivering: Their hometown is apparently the coldest inhabited place on Earth. Forecast for this week? Minus 90 Fahrenheit!

Related Stories:
· Headaches Continue at Sea-Tac [Seattle P-I]
· Storms in Pacific Northwest Strand Passengers [The Mercury News]
· United, Continental Favor Living Together [Chicago Tribune]
· Temperatures Could Hit -70 C in Northeast Siberia [Novosti]
· Snow Days coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: North Bend Eric]

Free Airline Tickets While The Pint Lives On

pbb — 2008-12-17T17:00:32-05:00

If you haven't heard by now, you must hate getting stuff for free: AirAsia is giving away 100,000 tickets, but you'll have to fly by the end of March, so don't bother if you're not going to be in Southeast Asia soon, newly serene after recent airport chaos.

It might be a safer trip than a tour of European capitals, after suspicious white powder was found at 15 16 US embassies on the Continent. (It wasn't that kind of white powder.) And researchers have just revealed that a trip to the US Gulf Coast is more likely to kill you than a trip to the Mid-Atlantic. (Blame the hurricanes, not the football fans.)

At least for now in England, that last drink before you die can still be rightly called a pint!

Related Stories:
· 100,000 Free Tickets [AirAsia]
· White Powder Alert at Embassies [CNN]
· Death Map Plots Where Mother Nature Might Kill You [Peter Greenberg]
· Giving Them an Inch, and a Pint [NYT]
· In Defense of Movie Set Travel [WorldHum]

[Photo: AirAsia]

All Atwitter

pbb — 2008-12-16T17:15:37-05:00

If you'll excuse the self-promotion, we'd like to let you know that Christopher Elliott thinks we're kind of a big deal on Twitter. Of course, he thinks 49 other travel tweeters are too, but we're more than happy to share the honor, particularly with our sis site HotelChatter.

More than 500 people are already keeping up with us, and if you aren't, why the wait? Sometimes we post links to stuff that we think is cool, sometimes we chat with our pals @JetBlue and still other times we dish out absolutely unsolicited travel advice. (In our defense, it was appreciated!)

Check out some of the other stuff we tweet about, and if you dig it, follow away!
· No Pants Day Is Coming Up [Twitter]
· We Love the Acer Aspire One [Twitter]
· We Want Your Thoughts on DC's Inauguration Boozing Ordinance [Twitter]
· Virgin America's New Boston Service [Twitter]
· Travel Websites We Think Are Super Useful [Twitter]

"Who Throws A Shoe? Honestly!"

pbb — 2008-12-15T17:33:34-05:00

The day after an Iraqi journalist tossed not one but two shoes at President Bush, the internet's awash in stories about how anything foot related is supremely offensive in the Middle East. Funny, we thought cold-blooded shoe chucking was off-limits everywhere!

Footwear flinging TV correspondent Muntadhar al-Zaidi might have a decent time in Dubai--once he's out of custody--where he'll soon be able to, uh, cool his heels on some artificially chilled sand in front of the Palazzo Versace hotel. Maybe some Delta employees--who may soon be taking buyouts in droves--can join him.

Related Stories:
· Brother Explains Shoe-Tossing Iraqi Journalist’s Anger [NYT Baghdad Bureau Blog]
· Proper Shoe-Throwing Etiquette for the Enthusiast [BlackBook]
· Chill Out You Beautiful People [UK Times]
· Brewers, Bucks No Longer Fly Midwest Charters [WTMJ]
· Delta Outlines Voluntary Severance Packages [BizJournals]

[Photo: Wikimedia]

"The Devil at 37,000 Feet"

pbb — 2008-12-10T17:00:28-05:00

The main event--for us anyway--in the January issue of Vanity Fair* is a piece called "The Devil at 37,000 Feet," about the incredible mid-air collision over Brazil in 2006 that killed 154 people and sucked survivor and aviation journalist Joe Sharkey into an incredible vortex of storytelling, xenophobia and international finger pointing. William Langewiesche, who is, in an interview about the article on vanityfair.com, cooler than the other side of Barack Obama's pillow, wrote the piece.

Perhaps garnering as much attention as the story itself are the cockpit tapes from both aircraft, hosted on the magazine's website. While VF says the voice recordings are newsworthy, the International Federation of Air Line Pilots' Associations says such use of cockpit voice recordings "for public entertainment" is an outrage.

* Owned, like Jaunted, by Conde Nast.

[Rendering of the collision: Wikimedia]