I’m sure I’ll have to update this come Sunday morning, but long before April 1, 2012 rolled around in my time zone, I made a few April Fools’ Day sightings.
From the Republic of Vanuatu comes word that Richard Branson has launched “Virgin Volacanic” in order to take travelers to the center of the earth
“Using patented carbon-carbon materials pioneered for deep space exploration, Virgin is proud to announce a revolutionary new vehicle, VVS1, which will be capable of plunging three people into the molten lava core of an active volcano.”
First up (or should I say down) is Etna – Sicily, Italy, followed by:
• Stromboli – Aeolian Islands
• Yasur – Republic of Vanuatu
• Ambrym – Republic of Vanuatu
• Tinakula – Solomon Islands
The first trips are scheduled for 2015. More details here.
Also, we have news from WestJet about a kids-free flying experience:
Details of Kargo Kids, including booking information and a simple, easy-to-understand demonstration video, is available on the WestJet website
Air New Zealand announced “STRAIGHTUP Fares” for those willing to fly while standing in the aisle holding onto a hand bar.
And Spirit Airlines, ever the prankster, announced $9 (each way) flights to the moon.
I spent much of Monday morning trying to track down the parent who posted the video (below) of a 3 year-old in a wheelchair getting a very thorough pat-down at an airport security checkpoint.
It turned out the video was shot in 2010 and had been posted on YouTube over the weekend. But that didn’t stop it from going viral.
Here’s my story about the video – and the TSA’s response – that posted on msnbc.com.
A video shot in 2010 showing a 3-year-old boy receiving a pat-down from a TSA agent went viral today. The toddler was wearing a cast and sitting in a wheelchair.
In an annotated videotape of the incident posted March 17 on YouTube, the father is heard reassuring his son, whom he calls “Rocco,” while a TSA officer is seen patting down the squirming boy and taking swabs of the chair and the cast. After asking the parents to lift the boy’s shirt and offering them the option of going to a private screening area, the officer is also shown swabbing the boy’s back.
The video has been viewed more than 400,000 times. [updated]
Before conducting the check at the Chicago Midway Airport, the TSA officer tries to reassure the boy by asking what he likes — “Tigers? Animals?” — and then asks the boy to sit up. During the inspection he also tells the parents what he is doing and tells Rocco that he’s a good boy.
Comments added to the video by his father, said, “I was told I could NOT touch him or come near him during this process. Instead we had to pretend this was ‘OK’ so he didn’t panic.”
Reached Monday morning, the boy’s father, Matt DuBiel, said the video was made in spring 2010 during a family trip to Disney World.
“We had a baby five weeks ago, and I was looking at some old family videos on Saturday night, and I got incensed and emotional watching it.”
DuBiel says he posted it on YouTube to share it with family members who have heard him talk about the incident but who hadn’t seen the video.
Noting that the incident took place more than a year ago, TSA, in a statement, said: “Due to the fact that this passenger was traveling in a wheelchair and had a cast he would have been unable to pass through the walk-through metal detector or imaging technology and therefore received alternative screening, a pat-down and use of explosives trace detection.”
“It doesn’t matter when it was,” said DuBiel. “That’s the TSA and that is my son. And he is wearing a body cast. The TSA agent did the best he could with a ridiculous situation, but someone should have stepped in and said, ‘That’s enough.’ ” He said he didn’t make a fuss at the time because he was worried about getting the whole family through security. The family was traveling to Disney World.
“At the time, they didn’t have the rules in place for children that they have now. But, regardless of the new or old rules, my position is that it’s unacceptable to treat a toddler this way.”
Last fall, the TSA revised its rules for children 12 and under, saying they no longer have to remove their shoes at security checkpoints. The agency’s policy for Children with Disabilities states that “if your child is unable to walk or stand, the Security Officer will conduct a pat-down search of your child while he/she remains in their mobility aid, as well as a visual and physical inspection of their equipment.”
“While recognizing that terrorists are willing to manipulate societal norms to evade detection, our officers continue to work with parents to ensure a respectful screening process for the entire family at the checkpoint,” TSA said Monday.
Southwest Airlines is apologizing to a Clarksville, Tenn., family and investigating how a 9-year-old girl flying as an unaccompanied minor from Nashville to New York on Tuesday ended up re-routed and delayed for five hours without the airline notifying the family.
Chloe Boyce is fine and will be getting a special patch from her junior Girl Scout troop to mark her adventure, but her mom, Elena Kerr, is upset.
“The flight arrived and my daughter didn’t get off,” Kerr told me. “Someone went on the plane to see if she was there and my sister called me and said, ‘Where’s Chloe?’ The Southwest guys told her there were no unaccompanied minors on that flight.”
Kerr had put Chloe on a flight in Nashville headed for New York’s LaGuardia Airport with scheduled stops in Columbus and Baltimore.
Southwest’s policy only allows unaccompanied children to be booked on itineraries that don’t include plane changes. Chloe’s flight, however, made an extra stop in Cleveland due to weather, and upon arriving in Baltimore she was rebooked on another flight to New York.
Unfortunately, no one from the airline called Kerr to inform her of the delay. The airline also did not contact Chloe’s aunt, who was waiting at the gate in New York.
Kerr said she started frantically calling Southwest and that it took more than an hour for the airline to locate Chloe and even longer to explain what happened.
“At BWI, the flight attendant took her off the plane, walked her to Hudson News to get her a drink and some snacks and the pilot bought her dinner,” Kerr told me. “But while she was there no could tell us where she was.”
Kerr said her family is a military family that has spent time living in Alaska and that she understands delays. “We just don’t understand why we weren’t called, especially because the Southwest policy states that someone must be available to answer phone calls during the flight time in the event of a flight irregularity.”
Southwest Airlines has apologized to Kerr and refunded the cost of Chloe’s ticket.
“Our unaccompanied minor policy aims to minimize these kinds of situations … by only ticketing them on itineraries that don’t require an aircraft change,” said Southwest spokesperson Brad Hawkins via email.
“In this case, the unscheduled change of planes resulted in the connection, a delay and distress for the family which we certainly regret and have apologized for in our conversation with the family of our customer.”
Kerr is not convinced she should let Chloe fly alone again.
“We don’t trust Southwest,” said Kerr. ” I’m going to be driving the 17 hours to New York to get her.”
(A slightly different version of this story first appeared on msnbc.com)
Each Sunday StuckatTheAirport.com takes a look at the souvenirs you can get when you’re stuck at the airport.
This week, the souvenirs come from the sky, courtesy of Fly the Branded Skies, an airline-focused website that has a section devoted to the junior wings just about every airline used to hand out to young passengers.
Delta and a few other airlines still do hand out junior wings, but instead of metal the modern-day wings are plastic or, in some cases, merely a sticker.
JetBlue and PBS kids have rolled out a fun literacy program that will not only entertain kids, but help keep the cabin noise level in check.
The program has several elements, but here at StuckatTheAirport.com we’re most pleased to learn that kids on JetBlue flights this summer will receive a free activity kit with reading games, including this fun word find exercise.
Kids and their parents can also download a reading activity kit, create a summer reading list, log reading minutes and do other activities. And for every reader that registers on SoarwithReading.com, JetBlue will make a book donation to a child through First Book, up to 10,000 books.
Soar with Reading will also be giving $10,000 worth of children’s books to one community’s library. Another library will receive $2,500 worth of books and five other libraries will receive $500 worth of books, courtesy of Random House Children’s Books and JetBlue. You can nominate a library and, as a reward, be entered to win a vacation package to the Bahamas.
