In Freakonomics, we make the argument that a child’s first name doesn’t affect his or her life outcome. I am guessing that most inanimate objects, too, are relatively unaffected by the names they happen to pick up — even if the names aren’t very good. It has always struck me that a lot of the things we do and use . . .
Last week, Passenger X arrived at the Orlando airport with a first-class e-ticket for New York City. At the airport, the ticket machine spat out a boarding pass for a seat in the back of coach. Why? The plane, he was told, had been “downsized” from a large jet to a smaller one. There was no first-class section on the . . .
Travel much? While we’ve written a good bit about traveling on this site, from airplane dining to nightmare vacations to chocolate-friendly hotels, we are plainly pikers compared to Arthur Frommer. He is the founder of the omnipresent Frommer’s Travel Guides as well as Budget Travel magazine. His career was accidental: after graduating from Yale Law School in the midst of . . .
British Airways faces class action for losing luggage. (HT: Consumerist) The $100 iPhone rebate analyzed. Housing slump spells bad news for real estate agents. (Earlier) Can graph theory match kidney donors? (HT: BoingBoing)
Home sales hit five-year low. (Earlier) Second Life’s future: “bigger than the Web“?(Earlier) Delta starts a blog. (Earlier) Risk analyst sets next year’s median of U.S. terrorism deaths at zero. (Earlier)
In the wake of changes in airport security technology, Levitt lists his own ideas for a fear-maximizing terror plot, and solicits other ideas from readers as a means of bringing possible scenarios into discussion before they actually happen.
July 24 is Amelia Earhart Day, commemorating the flight pioneer’s birth date on July 24, 1897. Ten years ago, the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery launched The Earhart Project, a non-profit investigation that is still piecing together conclusive evidence of Earhart’s disappearance in 1937.
I am scheduled to fly to Sao Paulo, Brazil, in September for a lecture and then to Rio de Janeiro for a book festival. I have never been to Brazil before and, until this horrible plane crash in Sao Paulo the other day, I was very much looking forward to the trip. Now I am not. As someone who flies . . .
I blogged recently about a strange little incident with Northwest Airlines and a can of Pringles. Your comments indicated that Northwest has been plagued by rocky service. (Your comments also indicated that I’m a [expletive deleted] whiner, but I would argue that such comments missed the point of the post.) As Joe Sharkey reports in today’s New York Times, Northwest . . .
I recently flew business class on Northwest Airlines. When it came time for dinner to be served, I decided I would decline dinner for three reasons: 1. I had eaten just a few hours earlier. 2. I was busy working and I didn’t want to put away all the papers I had spread out on my tray. 3. I caught . . .
There are not many strong incentives for individuals to provide great customer service. There may be small financial rewards that accrue if customers routinely tell an employee’s supervisor what a great job they did; but if someone owns the business, the rewards are greater because positive word of mouth will generate new customers. Not surprisingly, many reports of great customer . . .
I was in Canada much of last week, and happened to run into an off-duty Air Canada pilot. I had flown Air Canada a few times in the previous days, and told him that the experience was significantly better than on any U.S. airline. He grimaced. “Oh, it’s terrible for us, too,” he said. Then he talked about all the . . .
The New York Times had a great piece yesterday on Steven Udvar-Hazy, founder and chief executive of the International Lease Finance Corporation and one of the most powerful figures in commercial aviation. His business model consists of buying and leasing a massive fleet of planes to the majority of the world’s major airlines — “massive” meaning, in this case, “larger . . .
I just returned from a fascinating and enjoyable trip to Warsaw. The only negative to the trip (besides the fact it is a 9 hour flight to get there) was how incredibly rude the Poles were about lines. I have never seen such obvious disrespect for other people when it came to cutting in lines, even when it meant that . . .
A recent post on Consumerist.com asked readers to comment on a plan to install rear-facing seats on airplanes. The options for commenting were basically: a) I don’t like it b) I like it fine; and c) Whatever, no comment, who cares, people should just be happy airlines provide the miracle of flight, so let them do whatever they want. For . . .
I’ve blogged before about my suspicions that the ban on electronic devices on airplanes is the product of a regulator with an overactive imagination, which is an opinion that upsets a lot of blog readers, so let’s take it another direction. Everyone knows you shouldn’t use cell phones in hospitals for fear of disrupting life-save hospital equipment. Right? According to . . .
Our post last week about the possibility of pilotless commercial airplanes produced a vigorous, fascinating, and civil discussion in the comments. Here’s a bit of followup for those of you who are still interested. My brother the pilot, a.k.a. Joe Dubner, wrote to tell me that “about 80% of commercial airliner takeoffs and landings are already remote-controlled” is not quite . . .
I’ve flown first class exactly twice in the last five years. The first time was right after 9/11. At the time I was struck by how ludicrous it is that they provided metal forks and spoons, but plastic knives. The idea was that terrorists would take over the plane using metal table knives (perhaps in combination with the nail clippers . . .