From time to time planes are forced into emergency landings. Sometimes the reasons are real emergencies, like a bird strike or cracked windshield. Sometimes the reasons are still real, but are only a smell of smoke in the cabin or an unruly passenger. In all cases, the crew make the executive decision to bring the bird down in the interest of safety. In many cases, the problem is detected, rectified and the passengers are on their way with a bit of a delay. They'll be a little late, but no major dramas ensue.

Over the weekend, a Qantas aircraft had such an emergency where the crew smelled smoke on board. Naturally, alarms were raised and the captain decided to divert to an alternate airport. The Boeing 767, en route from Darwin to Brisbane, safely landed in the small outback town of Mt. Isa.]]> jetflyboy 2012-01-31T08:55:11-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2011/12/6/172037/374

Did you feel that? If the internet could have earthquakes, we'd have just experienced a minor one as Alec Baldwin went from tweeting like normal, to getting kicked off an American Airlines plane at LAX, to being in custody, to becoming a trending topic, to giving his side of the story via Twitter in just about the span of one hour.

The reason for the tarmac takedown? Apparently, according to Alec, he was playing the popular mobile Scrabble-like app Words With Friends when a flight attendant "reamed" him out. Of course he was probably still playing it beyond the point of being asked to turn off and stow all electronic devices for take-off, hence the flight attendant interference. We predict that the next few days will see news channels rehashing the old argument of whether or not cell signals interfere with airplanes. You know, that old chestnut. ]]> JetSetCD 2011-12-06T17:20:37-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2011/11/13/214728/58

AirTran has a lot going on now with that Southwest thing and all, but it looks like they’re headed for a little bit of legal trouble. Lucky for them we think it’s slightly frivolous, but that doesn’t mean they won’t have to send out the legal team.

A couple from North Carolina just filed a lawsuit against the airline because they weren’t too happy about some of their fellow passengers—cockroaches. Apparently the little bugs made a surprise appearance on their flight to Houston, including the air vents. The passengers tried to voice their concerns to the flight attendants, but they claim that their pleas for help were ignored. ]]> kjb 2011-11-14T09:31:40-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2011/10/31/9197/8732

Happy Halloween!

This annual holiday is pretty much one of the most polarizing; you either love Halloween and get totally into it, or you don't care for it at all and end up cranky. Regardless, we can name one thing absolutely no one likes, and that's being stuck in travel hell. Some flyers experienced it this weekend during the various delays, cancellations and diversions, but sometimes nothing compares to retelling old spooky stories...

The Worst Moments of Travel Hell, 2011:]]> JetSetCD 2011-10-31T10:01:08-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2011/10/17/7836/6261

Air India can't seem to do anything right. The company tried for years to join Star Alliance—we covered some of their bumbling efforts last May—only to recently give up and suspend integration efforts. Star Alliance's minimum membership requirements, which other airlines seem to be able to meet just fine, turned out to be just too difficult for the Air India people to figure out. On its face, that's not a particularly encouraging signal of competence.

Now comes news out of London that the airline was responsible for a truly epic nine hour tarmac delay, which came at the end—not at the beginning, but at the end—of a long-haul flight from Mumbai.

200 passengers plus one Boeing 777 minus any food unsurprisingly equaled grumpiness. If you're saying to yourself, "I can't believe cops weren't called to put down a riot," you'll be interested to know that cops were indeed called to put down what almost became a riot. ]]> Omri 2011-10-17T09:03:29-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2011/8/10/231741/937

You'd think we wouldn't have to say this, but after an incident yesterday onboard a cross-country flight, we have to: please don't pee on fellow airplane passengers. Not only is it gross and rude and borderline criminal, but it also ruins a flight for the rest of the passengers onboard and makes the situation very difficult for flight attendants. This is officially an amendment to our just-published list of The Top Ten Gross Things Flight Attendants Have Seen Passengers Do on Airplanes, assuming the FAs saw it happen.

As the story goes, the JetBlue red-eye from Portland, OR to New York-JFK yesterday has a family with an 11-year-old girl who wouldn't shut up, or was a disturbance in some way. A drunk 18-year-old boy got up, confronted the girl at her row, exposed himself and peed on her. The NY Post continues: ]]> JetSetCD 2011-08-11T11:52:34-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2011/6/3/135824/6631

Tarmac delay laws have been a predictable disaster. As we explained at painful and indignant length in the leadup to the new rules, it makes no sense to incentivize airlines not to have public relations nightmares, since as companies trying to make money they already have that incentive.

Long tarmac delays happen because airplanes have to wait in line to take off, and if you return to the gate you lose your place in line and get stuck on the ground indefinitely. So pilots gamble on staying in line and riding out delays rather than returning to their gates. Creating rules that would bankrupt airlines for making those gambles—which is what tarmac delay fines do—would only lead to more cancellations and longer delays, we said.

So obvious were these scenarios that bureacrats could only defend the rules by promising airlines that regulators would "rarely impose the maximum penalties." Pause for a second and let that sink in. When pushed on how they were passing a bunch of really counterproductive new rules, bureaucrats resorted to telling airlines to have faith that the rules wouldn't get enforced. Since that's really stupid—airlines aren't going to rely on the good will of a person whose job it is to fine them—cancellations and longer delays immediately spiked. And now, because the groups who push regulations are apparently filled with shrill, insufferable busy bodies who have nothing better to do than ruin travel for the rest of us, it's happening all over again.]]> Omri 2011-06-03T14:55:08-05:00 Search Jaunted string http://www.jaunted.com/search/