Posts in the category "Baggage":

NORAD has been reporting the goings-on at the North Pole as Santa gets ready to make his rounds and today reported that “the special navigation panel aboard Santa’s sleigh is functioning as planned.”

That’s good news, because today Denver International Airport reported that it’s 50 millionth passenger was Santa Claus, who arrived on Great Lakes flight #1225.

DEN airport officials said “Mr. Claus was presented with a check for $3,500 – a donation made on his behalf to the Toys for Tots Foundation – and a blue “50 millionth passenger” sash.

If you don’t get to see Santa at an airport near you, perhaps you’ll encounter the Luggage Fairy – who may or may not look like one of the images below -

Briggs & Riley has gotten together with the Luggage Fairy, who has promised to pick up the checked bag fee for a few  travelers who visit the company’s Facebook page and enter a holiday contest.

Here’s the deal:

Each day from December 21 through 23, visit the Briggs & Riley Facebook page to find the Luggage Fairy’s hint about her season’s picks for the best checked bags. Post your answer and get a chance to win a $25 gift card to pay for your next checked bag.

Good luck!

Categories: Air Travel, Baggage, Contests, Free Stuff
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The folks at Briggs & Riley have declared October to be the 40^th anniversary of their invention of wheeled luggage.

“The first wheeled bag was the brainchild of Briggs & Riley’s parent company U.S. Luggage and then-president Bernard Sadow. When returning from Aruba with his wife and their two heavy suitcases, he noticed a skid nearby, and made an inspired connection, turning to his wife and saying, “That’s what luggage needs: wheels.”

“…U.S. Luggage filed for and won a patent on the now lucrative innovation in 1972, which was later defeated by other companies who now can put wheels on their luggage.

But there are other people who claim they invented wheeled luggage.

Bob Plath, a Northwest Airlines pilot who started the Travelpro company, claimed he invented the first rolling luggage as well. In 1989.

But wait a minute; according to this Wikipedia entry about D. Dudley Bloom, the man who invented the first “magic” milk bottle for dolls (a truly wonderful invention!) also came up with the idea of luggage built on wheels.

“…. Bloom was director of product development at Atlantic Luggage Company in Trenton, New Jersey. In 1958, he might have made his most profound contribution to consumer products had the chairman of the company’s board only shared his insight. Approaching the chairman with a full-scale model of his proposed product, Bloom showed Atlantic how it could put its luggage on a platform with casters and a handle. “Who’d want to put luggage on wheels?” the chairman scoffed. Although on one occasion, Christmas, 1949, Bloomingdale’s had sold a novelty device that attached to luggage so that it could be wheeled, and camp trunks had been manufactured on wheels since the latter part of the 19th century, inexplicably, no one before Bloom had ever built ordinary luggage on a wheeled platform. …”

I suspect if we dug deeper we’d find reference to other people who claimed to have ‘invented’ wheeled luggage much earlier, but let’s just be thankful there IS wheeled luggage.

Because there are so many places we need to take our bags.

Categories: Air Travel, Baggage
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If you happen to be traveling to or through San Diego International Airport on Tuesday morning (September 14, 2010) between 10:30 am and 12:30 pm, make your way to the Terminal 2 West baggage claim area.

There, against the backdrop of travelers going about the business of grabbing their bags and greeting their loved ones, you’ll get to see the Malashock Dance Company perform a travel-themed modern dance.

And, if you’re checking into a hotel this week, keep in mind that it’s International Housekeepers Week.  This ‘holiday’ is celebrated each year in the second full week of September and in many cities the week is marked with Housekeeping Olympics competitions that include laundry folding, bed making, toilet bowl bowling, vacuum cleaner racing and other events.

The folks at the Four Season Austin were kind enough to share this photo of their general manager (the guy with the boxing gloves) fighting to keep the Housekeeping Champ title.

Categories: Airports, Baggage, Entertainment, Events, Free Stuff, Fun Stuff, Hotels
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Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport has a new Traveling Art exhibition space devoted to the work of Dutch artists and designers.  The work displayed will change every three months, but right now the exhibit cases include “Flexible Volume” bags designed Gonnie Janssen.

For example, the Harmonica Bag has a flexible bottom that can be adjusted to its contents.

And the senz° umbrella, which seems to be both stylish and, as a series of videos show, incredibly wind resistant.

I can’t wait to see what pops up next!

Categories: Air Travel, Art, Baggage, Exhibits, Fun Stuff, Layover, Openings, Uncategorized
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There are close to 700 aviation/space-related museums in the country.

Each Monday on StuckatTheAirport.com we profile one of them.

Eventually we’ll hit them all.

Today: The Kansas Aviation Museum in Wichita, Kansas

The museum is near the McConnell Air Force Base and is housed in the art deco-style building that served as Wichita’s municipal airport during the 1930s and 40s. Among the museum’s collection of about 40 airplanes is this Beech Starship,

and a B-52 bomber, a refueling tanker, and this 1927 Laird Swallow, which crashed in 1929, was put into storage for decades and then restored by museum volunteers.

Another charmer?  The Pretty Praire Special III, designed and built by Marion Unruh. According the museum website, this is the third in a series of airplanes named after Unruh’s hometown of Pretty Prairie, Kansas. Unruh designed the plane in 1951 but it wasn’t completed until 1957.

“It rolled, looped and could snap with the best acrobatic planes of the day.”

In addition to the airplane collection, the Kansas Aviation Museum has a wide variety of airplane engines on display and offers opportunities for volunteers to help with airplane restoration projects.

Do you have a favorite aviation-related museum you’d like others to know about? Tell us why you like it and it may be featured on a future edition of Museum Monday here at StuckatTheAirport.com.

Categories: Air Travel, Airplanes, Airports, Aviation history, Baggage, Exhibits, History, Museum Monday, Museums
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