Flight Blog
News and Tips about Air Travel, Business / Industry, Flying, Airplanes, and other fun

Archive for the 'Tips' Category

Sex toys on airplanes: How to get off past TSA

Wednesday, May 19th, 2010

Ever thought about taking your sex toys with you on an airplane? The San Francisco Chronicle put together this excellent guide about handling sex toys and air travel and luggage. Here’s a sample:
If you’re one of the 500,000 (half a million!) people traveling to San Francisco for this year’s Pride Parade, before you [...]

The airline turkey sandwich wars

Sunday, October 12th, 2008

Neal Stewart, this guy I know who fills the internet’s turkey-sandwich-review niche with his Turkey Sandwich Report blog (he also writes on The Denver Post’s blogs) examines an angle of the airline wars: The airline turkey sandwich wars.
On a flight a couple months ago, I reported that United Airlines knew I was on a flight [...]

One way to get around the annoying ad-frame you get when using the Denver airport’s free wifi:

Wednesday, June 25th, 2008

Okay, so last weekend I was at the airport in Denver, waiting for my plane, taking advantage of the free wifi. Only, nothing’s free, and DIA pays for some of the cost of providing free wifi by displaying ads with every page you load. I did my American duty and clicked on some of the [...]

For those who take their laptop when flying into the US, Bruce Schneier has some words about making your data safe.

Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008

This is for folk who travel into the United States — which also applies to U.S. residents who travel internationally. Bruce’s words are below:
So your best defence is to clean up your laptop. A customs agent can’t read what you don’t have. You don’t need five years’ worth of email and client data. You don’t [...]

The New York Times on finding bargain / cheap flights

Tuesday, May 27th, 2008

The New York Times’ article, Beating the Bushes for a Bargain Ticket, breaks down nine tips for finding cheap flight deals in today’s air travel world. A few of them are no-brainers, but heck, there’s a large no-brain market out there.
Here’s the Times’ advice, with my notes after:

Book Directly With The Airline
Sign Up For Private [...]

More tips on how to get the best seat on an airplane

Thursday, May 1st, 2008

Getting the seat you want may or may not be a big deal to you. That’s fine — if it is, this is a roundup of MSNBC’s article on how to get the best seat on an airplane:

Join a frequent flier program
Buy your tickets early
Consider purchasing a better seat
Select your seat when you book
Confirm your [...]

Lost your luggage? What you do, what is covered…

Thursday, April 17th, 2008

The Baltimore Sun has a splendid article, If you check bags, read the airlines’ fine print, which covers what to do if you lose your luggage, what’s covered, stuff like that.
What it comes down to:

If something happens to your luggage, you have 24 to 48 hours to make your claim.
If something from your luggage [...]

Got in-flight turbulence worries? My mom does. Get maps, info and forecasts…

Wednesday, April 9th, 2008

Wind shear scares the heck out of my mom. Turbulence too. Never mind that airplanes are one of the safest forms of transportation in humankind’s existence, if she’s not in or can’t see the driver’s seat, who knows what the heck is going on and where the heck they’re going.
And now, there’s Turbulence Forecast. Turbulence [...]

What time is the best to book a flight? 12 A.M. Eastern, apparently

Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008

The Associated Press reports on the best time to book flights:

The co-founder of Lessno.com, a Web site that offers international flights, says it does matter.
“Our experience with airlines has shown us that they update available seats around 12 a.m. Eastern time every day,” said Assen Vassilev, who is also the company’s CEO.
He added that weekend [...]

How to find out why your flight was really delayed

Monday, November 19th, 2007

The Consumerist blog figured out that while airlines may lie and waffle on the reasons your flight is delayed, they tell the truth to their cargo clients. And they also have a special website that tells what the reason for the delays are, for those cargo-fare folk. These are the cargo websites for the major [...]