Aaron Britt, the senior editor over at Dwell Magazine has been reading Alain de Botton’s book, A Week at the Airport: A Heathrow Diary, and was pretty sure fans of Stuck at the Airport would be interested in his two-part review.
He’s right. de Botton’s book is all about the time he spent as writer-in-residence at the British Airways terminal in London’s Heathrow Airport.
If you haven’t got your own copy of the book yet, you can read an excerpt in the New York Times and then wing your way over to Britt’s review.
Here’s an excerpt from that:
My favorite bit comes when he gets to Richard Roger’s eye-goggling architecture itself. He lucidly declares that the building’s soaring supports “were endowed with a subcategory of beauty we might refer to as elegance, present whenever architecture has the mnodest not to draw attention to the difficulties it has surmounted. On top of their tapered necks, the columns balanced the 400-metre [sic] roof as if they were holding up a canopy made of linen, offering a metaphor for how we too might like to stand in relation to our burdens.” Nice stuff.
Britt plans to post the second part of his review on Thursday and says:
I think that the second half, dominated by an assessment of what’s beyond the security gate is far more fruitful for de Botton. His natural position of informed ruminator gets going as he takes us on more of a guided tour of the security zone, shopping area, and first class lounge. He’s best when making connection between physical spaces and desire then when focusing on individual people. The space itself, and more importantly, our rituals in it show through better in the second half, the throat-clearing of the early pages now nicely laid to rest.
For a lot of people, that’s a more frightening scenario than snakes on a plane.
And a lot more likely.
And as I wrote in my msnbc.com column this week – Passengers peeved about peanuts on airplanes – a lot of travelers think the best way to enhance airline passenger protections is to ban peanuts on planes.
Through September 23rd, the Department of Transportation (DOT) is taking public comment on a wide range of issues affecting airline passengers. Everything from peanuts on planes to involuntary bumping policies to surprise baggage fees.
Of the nearly 1,300 public comments submitted so far, the majority are focused on peanut allergies.
One problem though.
Technically, DOT doesn’t have the authority to change in-flight peanut policies. That’s because an appropriations law from 2000 prohibits the agency from passing peanut rules until a scientific study proves a rule change will actually benefit airline passengers with allergies. And no such study has been completed or commissioned.
Still, the agency is trying to gauge public opinion on ways to handle in-flight peanuts.
“We haven’t said we won’t do anything,” said DOT spokesperson Bill Mosely. “We haven’t ruled anything in or out. So we still do want to hear public comments about peanuts. We plan to read and review them all.”
The problem with flying peanuts
Peanut allergies among children have tripled between 1997 and 2008, and peanut allergies, tree-nut allergies, or both, are reported by 1 percent of the U.S. population, or about 3 million people, according to the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network (FAAN), a group that supports discontinuing serving peanuts on planes.
The fear of having a severe reaction from exposure to peanuts while locked inside an airplane keeps some allergy sufferers grounded. Under DOT’s rules, passengers with severe peanut allergies have a qualifying disability covered by the Air Carrier Access Act, which prohibits discrimination by U.S. and foreign carriers against individuals with disabilities.
As far back as 1988, DOT advised airlines to make reasonable accommodations for passengers disabled by their peanut allergies. Most airlines voluntarily comply, but no formal rules have been put in place.
Now, DOT is asking the public to comment on three alternatives to accommodate peanut-allergy sufferers on airplanes:
Ban the serving of peanuts and all peanut products on all flights;
Ban the serving of peanuts and all peanut products on all flights where a passenger with a peanut allergy requests it in advance, or;
Require airlines to establish a peanut-free buffer zone for passengers with severe peanut allergies.
DOT is also asking the public to comment on how peanuts and peanut products carried on board by passengers should be handled.
Peanut protections for airline passengers
If you’ve got a problem with peanuts, here’s what you need to know:
AirTran, Alaska/Horizon, American, Continental, JetBlue and United are among the major domestic airlines that do not serve peanuts. However, most airlines also post notices saying they can’t promise that some items served on board won’t contain nut products or that other passengers won’t bring their own nut products on board.
Two domestic airlines continue to ladle out legumes.
In 2009, both Southwest Airlines and Delta Air Lines served about 92 million bags of peanuts. “That does sound like a lot of nuts,” said Patrick Archer, president of the American Peanut Council, “But the airline portion of the overall U.S. peanut business is really very small.”
If alerted, Delta Airlines will accommodate a passenger with a peanut allergy by creating a peanut-free buffer zone for three rows in front of and three rows behind their seat. The airline’s website also notes that when advised that a passenger with peanut allergies is flying, “Gate agents will be notified in case you’d like to pre-board and cleanse the immediate seating area.”
And while Southwest Airlines can’t guarantee a nut-free airplane, it will suspend peanut service on an entire flight if a passenger with an allergy requests it. See Southwest’s peanut dust allergy page for more information.
Want to share your thoughts about peanuts-on-planes? You can leave a comment below.
You can also file comments for the DOT to read (through September 23, 2010) here.
On the first weekend of every month more than 100 museums, zoos and attractions around the country offer free admission to anyone with a Bank of America card as part of the Museums on Us program.
Visiting one of the participating venues is a great way to stretch a weekend entertainment budget and a good excuse to get acquainted with the work of a new artist or get reacquainted with a favorite animal at your local zoo.
In Plane View: Abstractions of Flight features 56 large-format photographs by Carolyn Russo showcasing the elegance and beauty of airplane design. For example, this photo shows grooves in the exhaust cone of the North American X-15.
Can’t make it to Kansas? When the exhibit leaves the Wichita Art Museum, it will travel to the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Triangle, Virginia and then, in January 2011, to the Lakeview Museum of Arts and Sciences in Peoria, Illinois.
You might also take advantage of the Museums on Us program to get free admission to the Henry Ford in Dearborn, Michigan (Saturday only), where the 15 planes in the Heroes of the Sky exhibit includes this 1926 Fokker Trimotor used by Richard Byrd in his attempt to be the first to reach the North Pole by plane.
According to the museum notes:
Because Edsel Ford funded Byrd’s trip to the Arctic, the plane was named for his daughter, Josephine. Tony Fokker, the manufacturer, wanted to be sure no one mistook the plane for a Ford, so he painted the giant “FOKKER” on the wings and fuselage. There’s no heater in this plane, so temperatures inside the cabin could have easily reached -50° F while flying through the Arctic sky.
There are more than 700 aviation and space-related museums in this country.
Each Monday we profile one of them. Eventually we’ll hit them all.
This week: Looking for Lindbergh
Aviator and explorer Charles Lindbergh died on August 26th back in 1974, so it’s as good a time as any to take a look at some of the museums around the country that display items relating to Lucky Lindy.
First stop: The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., which displays Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis airplane in the Milestones of Flight Gallery.
(Photo by Eric Long/NASM, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution)
Next stop: The Missouri History Museum, which has an ongoing exhibition dedicated to Charles Lindbergh’s life. The exhibit includes some of the medals and gifts that Lindbergh loaned to the Missouri Historical Society for ten days back in 1927, shortly after the famed aviator completed the first solo, transatlantic flight.
Crocheted, stuffed airplane made for Charles Lindbergh
“The Missouri Historical Society exhibited the items on top of the archaeological cases in an attempt to display the items as quickly as possible. The exhibition opened on June 25, 1927, and a local newspaper estimated that 116,000 people viewed the Lindbergh items during the first four days of the exhibition. The exhibition’s popularity led to Lindbergh agreeing to extend the loan of the collection; five years later, Lindbergh and his wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, donated the extensive collection to the Missouri Historical Society.”
There are plenty of other museums around the country that display a community’s link to Lindbergh, but for today our final stop will be the Stanley King Collection of rare Charles Lindbergh commemorative memorabilia at the National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center down the road from Washington Dulles International Airport.
(Photo by Eric Long/NASM, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution)
Do you have a favorite aviation or space-related museum you’d like others to know about? If you do, please write a note about it below and it may be featured on a future edition of Museum Monday here on StuckatTheAirport.com
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.
