Stuck at the Airport

BBC Fast Track & ANZ’s new Boeing 777-300ER

On the BBC World News program Fast Track this week, Carmen Roberts offered up “Hi-tech ways to pass time at the airport.”

I’m delighted to find out that StuckatTheAirport.com was featured in the story, along with some other “online innovations that may just prevent that air rage from bubbling over.”

Please take a look:

StuckatTheAirport.com

And speaking of innovation….

In Everett, Wa. on Wednesday, Air New Zealand took delivery of its first Boeing 777-300ER aircraft.  The plane is on its way to to Auckland, with a planned touchdown on Christmas Eve morning.

Sadly, I couldn’t join that first flight, so I can’t report for sure whether or not Santa is on that plane, but I do know that the plane is equipped with the new lie-down Skycouch or Cuddle Class seating in economy class, induction ovens that allow the preparation of made-to-order meals, bathrooms with wallpaper depicting book cases, chandeliers and other home interior elements (photo coming soon) and an in-flight story-time for kids hosted by the cabin crew.

ANZ Boeing 777-300ER

Souvenir Sunday: tiny travel items and free in-flight Wi-Fi

Free Wi-FI at airport

This weekend kicks off a great holiday promotion that provides travelers with a truly useful travel souvenir. Depending on when you travel, you’ll be able to get free in-flight Wi-Fi on four airlines: Air Tran, Alaska Airlines, Delta Air Lines and Virgin America.

Domestic travelers on Air Tran, Delta and Virgin America will be able to use the Gogo Inflight Internet for free on all Wi-Fi equipped planes from now through January 2, 2011. (Thank-you, Google Chrome). Travelers on Alaska Airlines can log on to Gogo for free from now through December 9, 2010.  (Thank-you, Honda.)

While you’re up there poking around the Internet for free, please take a moment to look at the Passports with Purposes website.

A word-wide team of bloggers has banded together to try to raise $50,000 to build a village in India.

Last time I looked, the heart-shaped thermometer showed we were just $15,000 short of the goal.

The project on its own is quite worthy, but each $10 you donate gets you an entry ticket for one of a boatload of great prizes, everything from plane tickets and hotel stays to upscale travel gear, an iPod, an iPad and swanky vacation packages.

My prize partner for the project is Mimimus.biz, the popular website that stocks pretty much anything you can think of in travel-sized and single-serving sizes.

minimus.biz hummus dip

They’ve donated a surprise box stuffed with essential, curious and luxury travel-sized items that I hope will include the organic Amazonian lip balm that comes packaged in a tree nut, TSA-friendly single servings of hummus and the Duncan Imperial Yo-Yo keychain.

minimus.biz imperial duncan Yo-Yo key chain

Opt out or opt in? Airport scanners & pat-downs in the news

TSA BACKSCATTER

The news has been filled with stories about the TSA’s new enhanced body pat-downs, the new airport body scanners and campaigns encouraging people to opt out of the scanning process. Travelers left and right are posting their accounts of the pat-down process.

Need to catch up? Here are some of the stories:

USA TODAY has posted two opinion pieces on the airport scanning issue:

Our view on security vs. privacy: Critics bash airport scans, but what’s their alternative?

and

Opposing view on security vs. privacy: Honor basic dignity by James Babb and George Donnelly, the co-founders of the We Won’t Fly group.

Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, of Miracle on the Hudson fame, shared his opinion about whether or not airline personnel should be subjected to full body pat-downs and advanced imaging scanners.

and

Gizmodo got its hands on – and posted – photographs of 100 of the 35,000 images U.S. Marshals in a Florida Federal Courthouse saved on a scanner. These images don’t come from an airport scanner – Department of Homeland Security and TSA have promised that airport scanners do not have the capability to save images – but Gizmodo and others clearly aren’t confident that’s the real story.

There’s more. LOTS more.  Check back later….

Souvenir Sunday: miniature books and travel-sized items

Each Sunday here at StuckatTheAirport.com is Souvenir Sunday: a day to take a look at some of the fun, inexpensive souvenirs you can find at airports.

AYP Novelty Shop from UW Libraries, digital collection

This week: fun, inexpensive and tiny things to bring to the airport and on your trip.

A friend heading to India (lucky duck!) was seeking suggestions for three weeks-worth of titles to load onto a borrowed Kindle.

E-books are certainly the modern way to lighten your load, but in the past avid readers might have chosen to pack miniature books instead. Perhaps some of the books described in a recent blog post by a special collections cataloger at the Smithsonian Institution.

Diane Shaw writes that the Smithsonian’s collection includes more than 50 miniature books, each three inches or less, and calls them “practical as well as whimsical,” and “easily tucked inside a wallet or pocket.”

Miniature book at Smithsonian  Institution

That sounds perfect for traveling.  Especially the tiny treasure titled Witty, Humorous and Merry Thoughts, which is in a metal locket-like case with a magnifying glass in the cover.

Miniature book at Smithsonian

Book photos courtesy Smithsonian Institution

But  why stop with books? Perhaps you already travel with a collapsible umbrella, a tiny alarm clock and TSA-friendly toiletries and cosmetics.

Here are few other items to consider:

Orikaso makes foldable, incredibly light and thin mugs, bowls and plates that, when not in use, are flat pieces of Greenpeace-endorsed polypropylene.

folding tableware

Bamboo markets several sizes of these collapsible Silicone travel bowls for pets.  But since the bowls are made from FDA-compliant materials and are PVC and BPA-free, I suspect they’d also come in handy for use by people too.

collapsible pet dog bowls

All sorts of games, from Mahjong and Monopoly to Candyland and Cribbage, can be found in travel-size versions.  And then there are some of the items for sale at sites like minimus.biz.

In addition to the classic travel-sized personal care, cosmetic and pharmacy items, the site carries single-serving food items and useful pocket-sized survival items such as mini-rolls of duct tape, light sticks and space-age emergency blankets.

emergency blannket

Have you found a great, must-have travel-sized item?  Please share your tips here.

Travel contests: you can’t win if you don’t play

where should we go

It would be great to have the money and the time and the energy to go everywhere, but few of us have that option.

So we plan and we dream…and we enter travel contests.  Here are a few fresh ones to try:

JetBlue Airways’ “TrueBlue Birthday Sweepstakes” marks the first anniversary of the airline’s revamped frequent flier program.

The Grand Prize is one million TrueBlue points. Second Prize: a four-night package for four at a resort in Barbados. Third Prize: a two-night getaway package for two at the Fontainebleau in Miami Beach. Other prizes include: a five-night stay at any Waldorf Astoria Hotel worldwide, $250 Hertz gift certificates and $100 FTD gift certificates.

Enter JetBlue’ contest here.

Every Thursday through December 2, American Express is giving away a 3-night stay at a Sheraton hotel as part of the American Express and Starwood’s “Thank Goodness It’s Thursday (TGIT)” Facebook Giveaway. The value of the prize increases each week, so by the end of the promotion the prize will be a 3-night stay at a Sheraton Category 6 hotel.

Enter the contest here.

Pan Pacific Hotels in the Seattle, Vancouver and Whistler, B.C. are also having a Dream Getaways contest on Facebook. To enter, you’ll need to write a note about how you’d spend a weekend at one of the hotels.

Three winners will win a trip to Seattle, Vancouver or Whistler (1 prize for each destination), 2 nights’ accommodation, daily breakfast, complimentary parking and an in-city activity.

You can enter this contest three times (once for each hotel on via) via email at getawayscontest@panpacific.com or on Facebook: Vancouver,

Whistler or  Seattle . Deadline: November 30, 2010. Winners announced December 3, 2010.

And on its Facebook page Cathay Pacific is asking travelers to come up with an Asian-inspired dessert for the airline’s international flights.  The prize: a pair of business class tickets to Hong Kong.

Enter the Art of the Dessert contest here.

Good luck! And if you win, don’t forget to bring StuckatTheAirport.com a souvenir.