Continental Pilot Dies During Flight

The captain of a Continental Airlines flight from Brussels to Newark died in the cockpit over the Atlantic, several news outlets have reported.

The Boeing 777 carries a flight crew of three, and the two other pilots have landed the jet in Newark,  The Star-Ledger reports. The name of the 61-year-old captain has not been released.

Regional Pilot Pay Is Not ‘Fair And Reasonable’

U.S. regional airline pilot pay is “fair and reasonable” and “in line with comparable professions,” Roger Cohen, president of the Regional Airline Association told a Senate subcommittee on Wednesday, as Bloomberg reports.

So what’s fair and reasonable? Co-pilots earning as little as $23,900 and an average of only $32,000. Pilots earning an average of $67,000 to $76,000, depending on the type of aircraft they’re flying.

What’s a “comparable profession?” According to Cohen, that’s a “paramedic or medical assistant.”

I’m not buying it. Commercial pilots should earn more than that because they are — or should be — worth more than that.

These people are operating aircraft worth $30 million or more and are responsible, over time, for the lives of thousands of passengers. They have had extensive and expensive training. The best are very highly skilled — and we want only the best.

We won’t get them, though, if we won’t pay for them.

New York Times Calls For News Rules On Pilot Rest

A New York Times editorial is calling on the FAA to write new rules on pilot flight hours and mandatory rest periods. And if the FAA won’t do it, the editorial says, Congress should. Hear, hear. What they said.

Hotel Chain Gets Involved In Letterman-Palin Controversy

The Embassy Suites hotel chain has pulled its advertising from CBS.com because the ads rotated onto the Web site for the Late Show with David Letterman.

The move came in response to a campaign to get Letterman fired and to  boycott his advertisers after his controversial joke about one of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s daughters. 

But Embassy Suites, a Hilton brand, never advertised on the TV program. And Access Hollywood reports that the chain pulled the ads from CBS.com only temporarily and quoted a spokesman saying the chain is not taking sides.

Letterman has followed up with an apology and a Top 10 list entitled Top Ten Things Overheard At The “Fire David Letterman” Rally.

More Cruise Ship Passengers Go Overboard

A man was rescued from Tampa Bay on Monday morning after he climbed up on a railing of the Carnival Inspiration, slipped and fell overboard, the St. Petersburg Times reports.

The passenger spent three hours clinging to a buoy and later told authorities he had been trying to get a better view of the pilot boat, which ferries harbor pilots between ships and the shore.

Meanwhile, a search is under way for a 50-year-old woman who reportedly went overboard from the Carnival Holiday in the Gulf of Mexico, CNN reports. Read the rest of this entry »

Amtrak Quiet Car Getting Even Quieter

I heard an announcement Sunday on Amtrak’s Northeast Regional heading back to Hartford that starting today there will be absolutely no talking on the quiet cars.

So brush up on your sign language, people.

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Six Flags: Down But Not Out

Burdened by an immense debt load, Six Flags has filed for bankruptcy protection. The company has 20 theme parks in North America, and is saying that they will all continue operating as usual. Creditors have reportedly already signed on to the company’s restructuring proposal.

Down With Staycations

I don’t just hate staycations, I hate the word “staycation.” It’s an annoying neologism that has had way too much airtime to be even remotely bearable.

I also hate all the variations, from daycations (one-day trips) to paycations (vacations by laid-off workers with large settlements). And let me add pre-emptively that if anyone starts using the terms, I will hate flaycations (for masochists), slaycations (for sadists), traycations (for people who eat in cafeterias) and spaycations (for people getting sterilizations surgery.) I will hate them all.

But vacations — I still like those.

Beer Bike: Good Times Or ‘Uncontrolled Projectile?’

by dutchamsterdam.nl via Flickr

Despite its long and harmonious history of bicycling and substance abuse,  Amsterdam is experiencing a conflict between the two.

The source of consternation is the beer bike, on which 10 or more people sit around a bar, drinking beer and pedaling to power a contraption steered by a designated driver. Despite the ostensible sobriety of the driver, the bikes have been involved in two recent accidents, Reuters reports, prompting a motorcyclist to call the one that hit him “an uncontrolled projectile.”

I am not against bicycles or crowds of drunks, but it does seem a little risky to combine the two. Amsterdam is already so bike-centric that a perfectly sober grandmother will run you down with her Schwinn if you step in her path. What a dozen British tourists with several pints in them might do is not something that bears contemplation.

While I would very much like to go on a beer bike tour, it may be one of those things that a principled traveler ought to foreswear for the public good. Rats.

Will Summer Travel Be Cheaper Than Fall Travel?

Travelocity is suggesting that it may be cheaper to travel this summer than to wait for fall, a reversal of the usual pattern.

“Those who want to take advantage of the abundance of travel deals should do so this summer,” the company says in a press release. It cites a 17 percent drop in domestic air fares from last summer, and 14 percent declines in international air fares and in hotel rates both international and domestic.

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