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Spirit Airlines Throws Temper Tantrum, Hikes Fees

It seems like only Monday when we were saying that it might be a bad idea to force airlines—some of whom barely have a pulse, as exemplified by the American Airlines bankruptcy—to give up on all the ways they've invented to make money. No one denies that some airline fees are insanely grating, and we complain about them as much as anyone, but with the airline industry recovering from the worst decade ever, maybe this isn't the perfect time for heavy-handed government brainstorming. No one wants a repeat of the tarmac delays debacle, after all.

Naturally the Department of Transportation has chosen now to pass a series of new regulations, including a ban on ticket-change fees for changes made within 24 hours of booking. And we could be doing a post about whether those are bad ideas in theory or in practice or in both. But instead we're going to write about the reaction of Spirit Airlines to the DOT's decision. Because if theRyanair of North America has a specialty, it's in taking something mildly obnoxious and completely owning it.

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Rental Cars / Travel News / Travel Hell / Bad Ideas / → All Tags

The Stupidest Rental Car Story You May Hear This Year

This is not her car, but still WTF

We often wonder if one week will ever pass in which there’s just not some totally obscure travel story. This week isn’t going to be it, as we’ve already found the winner for a huge "WTF."

A Houston woman was doing her best to navigate her rental car towards a hotel room for the night when she veered off the road and got the car stuck in a drainage pond in Idaho. However, instead of getting out of the car and making her way to safety, she just decided to hunker down and wait for help in the car. For like three days. We’re thinking she must have really liked her rental car, and maybe she scored some kind of sweet upgrade.

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TSA / RIC / SMF / JFK / Airport Security / Airline Security / Bad Ideas / Full-Body Scanners / → All Tags

Wait. The TSA Intercepts How Many Guns Per Day in Airports?

Ideally we'd like to spend this post criticizing TSA for various inadequacies implicit and explicit. There's something not quite right about the agency's new "we'll retest for radiation levels but not really" announcement on full-body scanners, especially given its extensive and well-documented past dissembling on the issue. There are still issues to discuss from last year about the contradictions in pushing for private TSA baggage screeners. We'd like to know why it was necessary to tase a traveler to the point of hospitalization at the Sacramento International Airport. Someone should ask what steps are being taken to prevent a repeat of the $40,000-stealing TSA agent. And isn't there something wrong with airport security when $400,000 worth of coins are getting left at security every year by flustered travelers?

But we can't talk about any of that, because people won't stop trying to bring weapons on airplanes. Especially guns. Lots and lots of guns. So instead of this post being about the many ways TSA makes traveling worse, it's about one very specific way that travelers make traveling worse.

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Travel With Children / Bad Ideas / Airline News / US Airways / → All Tags

An Early Nomination for the Stupidest Travelers of 2012

Last year it took us until the end of January to open nominations for the stupidest traveler of the year. But now that we're living in the future, here in 2012, everything moves faster.

It's the first week of the new year and already there are stories of travelers who—if they aren't straightforwardly blistering idiots—start off at least as idiot-adjacent. But then at the end there's a punchline that literally causes our blood pressure to spike, and that crosses the line into incandescently stupid.

The Fickes family of North Carolina has quite the broode. There are the two parents, Kathy and Jason Fickes. Then there's their 3-year old son. Then there are their 18-month old twins. Then there's their eight-month old baby. All six of the Fickes were traveling to Chicago to visit grandparents over Christmas. So far so good. The problem enters inasmuch as they tried to fit the entire family into a single row in coach on a US Airways flight.

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The Jauntys / Jaunted Awards 2011 / Travel Awards 2011 / Bad Ideas / Ryanair / Qantas / Sex Travel / → All Tags

The Most Ridiculous Travel Idea of 2011 Is...

In 2008 we favorably covered the efforts of American Airlines flight attendants who were trying to block airplane wifi from showing porn. In 2009 we disgustedly called out in-flight porn reading on our "Top Ten Gross Things People Do On Airplanes" list. In 2010 we specifically chastised Democratic Representative John Conyers for flipping through a Playboy while sitting in couch.

Apparently none of that helped. 2011 was the year when in-flight porn viewing—enabled by technological innovation and monetized by some of the most obnoxious companies in the travel industry—broke into the mainstream. Ryanair used iPad porn as a publicity stunt and Qantas started screening an explicit guide to the female orgasm.

And so we're declaring airline-sponsored in-flight porn, which is frankly pervy beyond belief and seems to be catching on, to be the Most Ridiculous Travel Idea of 2011.

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Bad Ideas / TSA / Airport Security / Airline Security / → All Tags

Common Sense Says Don't Travel with Knives in Airports

We've been kind of rough on TSA over the last couple of months. We've raised concerns about how they're expanding outside of airports, especially given that inside airports they may be covering up the health risks of their safety procedures. Meanwhile we've mocked them for searching holiday gifts, for being obnoxiously pedantic about holiday foods, and for wasting $56 billion. Those two posts about gifts and food were kind of tongue-in-cheek, but the $56 billion thing—how do you even do that?

That said, and as we pointed out a few days ago, the agency has been making very tiny and very halting steps in the direction of sanity. So in the spirit of the season—and because security alerts shut down airports, and we're traveling over the next few weeks—we wanted to help them help you not make an easily-avoidable mistake.

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Crimes / Air France / First Class Travel / Travel News / Bad Ideas / Airlines / → All Tags

Thief Steals $13,000 of Air France First Class Swag, Gets Caught on Tiny Island

The French, suffice it to say, are not a nation renowned for their devotion to industry. Retirement ages are low, work weeks are short, and benefits are plentiful. The stereotype is that French workers will erect barricades in the streets for a month before they agree to increase the retirement age by a day.

And that, boys and girls, is how stereotypes can sometimes be misleading. It turns out that some Frenchmen are very industrious indeed. Take for example the main character in this simply insane story. A French thief managed to steal $13,000 worth of goods—"airline napkins, glasses, plates, blankets"—from the first class cabins of Air France flights. He was at it for a full three years apparently. Just imagine all the hard work and dedication that took.

When he was finally caught it was red-handed with a carry-on full of trinkets from the Air France flight, which landed in the tiny Indian Ocean island of Réunion.

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Airline News / KLM / Amsterdam Travel / Social Media / Facebook / Dating / Mile High Club / Sex Travel / Romance Travel / Travel Tech / Bad Ideas / → All Tags

Mile High Speed Dating Hits KLM, But No Joining the Mile High Club

We admit there have been times that we may have put noise cancelling headphones just to give the illusion of listening to music, warding off fellow passengers' incessant blabbing. There also have been times we've noticed someone that looks interesting—ahem attractive ahem—and wished we could swap seats to get a little closer.

The latter is how KLM prefers to fly, and they'll soon offer passengers the ability to pick their seatmate based on Facebook or Linkedin profiles. By next year, the airline will not only offer a window or aisle preference, but allow customers to view the profile of other passengers, then choose whether or not to sit next to them.

The first red flag we see is the obvious privacy of personal details. Passengers must opt-in to have their social media profile available for other travelers to see. Which means, not everyone will be taking part in this singles bar in the sky. Sigh of relief! It also begs the question; will the aircraft have a cabin area set aside for these passengers who are single and ready to mingle?

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Airline Security / Airport Security / Air Canada / Alcohol Travel / Bad Ideas / → All Tags

Important Travel Safety Tips About Guns, Booze, and Handcuffs

In today's airline security/airport security post, we recommend against trying to smuggle your loaded gun through an airport and against chewing off restraints that are placed on you mid-flight. Had you asked us a few weeks ago whether such advice would be necessary, we would have expressed the belief that - no - those rules seem self-evident. And yet here we are.

Exhibit A. According to the report he would later give police, Atlanta Hartfield passenger Richard Popkin was originally going to check his loaded .22-caliber Magnum revolver into his baggage. He changed his mind at the last minute because he was concerned that the gun would push his bag over the weight limit. Instead he opted for trying to smuggle the gun through airport security.

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Bad Ideas / Airline News / Delta / Crimes / Sex Travel / → All Tags

First Class Flyer Views Child Porn Mid-Flight, Promptly Gets Arrested

It's been quite the season for in-flight porn news. It was only a few months ago when Qantas started airing their instructional video "The Female Orgasm Explained," a mix of shoddy porn and musings about the mysteries of feminine sexuality. Then Ryanair did what Ryanair does, with the airline's aggressively anti-customer CEO Michael O'Leary announcing that his LCC might soon rent porn-filled iPads to passengers. Apparently Ryanair executives take statements like "there's literally no way a Ryanair flight could be more uncomfortable" as challenges.

Now there's this story. University of Utah engineering professor and father of two Grant Smith was taking a flight from Salt Lake City to Boston and—there's no gentle way of putting this—allegedly started looking at child porn on his laptop while seated in First Class. According to reports, a fellow first-class passenger saw Smith, then filmed Smith, then informed the flight crew regarding Smith, then emailed his relatives about Smith (yay, in-flight WiFi), then arranged to have Smith arrested on the ground. Admirably completionist.

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Bad Ideas / Airline Safety / Lasers / FAA / LGA / Crimes / → All Tags

Aiming a Laser at an Airplane is Not Cool. In Fact, It's Dangerous.

In 2005 there were 283 US incidents in which pilots coming in for landings had lasers aimed at their eyes. By 2010 the number had risen to 2,836 incidents per year. By October of this year we had already had 2,795 reports, which means we're easily going to clear the 2010 figure.

Another six incidents were reported at LGA just last weekend. The laser strikes were done with the relatively new and significantly more powerful green-color lasers, which are extra-dangerous. The FAA, suffice it to say, has declared itself to be unamused.

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Travel Snapshot / Bad Ideas / Toiletries / → All Tags

Old Spice Believes It Can Make Your Underarms Smell Like Fiji

Okay so we're likely many months behind on discovering these, but better late than never when it comes to Old Spice deodorant named after exotic travel destinations. We spotted them in a drugstore just yesterday—the "Matterhorn" and "Fiji" scents—and though we're well stocked up on deodorant, bought one anyway. No, Old Spice has nothing to do with this story; we're curious what an American toiletry brand thinks the top of a Swiss mountain smells like, and since we've actually been repeatedly falling on our butt snowboarding on the famous mountain, we thought it'd be interesting. $5.99 worth of interesting.

Apparently these scents are the "Fresh Collection" from Old Spice, promoted by both spokesmen Isaiah Mustafa and Fabio. A quick Google search revealed four scents: Matterhorn {smells like ice, wind and freedom), Denali (wilderness, open air and freedom), Fiji (palm trees, sunshine and freedom) and Komodo (exotic winds and spicy freedom).

Now for the big test—does their "Matterhorn" smell like the actual Matterhorn?

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