It’s the end of the long Thanksgiving weekend, probably the busiest time for U.S. airports, yet we haven’t heard of too many horror delay stories this year. Maybe that’s also because there were plenty of warnings and help guides beforehand, much like our first story. BUt first, here are our topics for this week:
- The U.S. airport frustration index
- Airline passengers asked to push plane
- Record number of people trying to board planes with guns
- Naked man falls through airpot ceiling
Thanksgiving happens every year, so it’s probably a good thing if you know what to expect at a given airport around this time of the year. It was handy that Bloomberg Businessweek published an interactive airport frustration index for U.S. and Canadian airports right in time for this year’s holidays. They surveyed more than 3,000 frequent flyers, analyzed travel times to and from airports, and compiled on-time departure and arrival data to find the most—and least—irritating places to catch a plane in the U.S. and Canada. Overall ‘winner’ of the highest frustrating airport went to New York’s LaGuardia Airport (LGA). Least frustrating went to Canada’s Vancouver Airport (YVR) which scored over 5 times better than it’s southeastern buddy.
The next story made us crack up. According to The Guardian passengers at Igarka airport (IAA) in far north of Russia’s Krasnoyarsk region were asked to push aircraft along runway in blistering cold. The newspaper wrote that it might sound like a bad joke about budget flights but for passengers at a remote Siberian airport there was little to laugh about when they were asked to leave the plane in extreme cold weather and help push it along the tarmac. The plane, a Tupolev 134 operated by Katekavia, a subsidiary of Utair, one of Russia’s biggest airlines, was reportedly carrying 74 passengers, took off and landed safely in the regional centre of Krasnoyarsk.
Back to the United States where this week CNN Money reported that the TSA discovers a record number of guns in carry-ons. According to the article this year (through to 17 November), 1,931 travellers were caught trying to board planes with guns in their carry-ons. Only in America? Probably.
Then – to finish the week off- a juicy story from the NY Daily News. According to the newspaper a naked and deranged Boston man allegedly fell through the ceiling inside a women’s bathroom at Logan International Airport (BOS) on Saturday and then bit off an 84-year-old man’s ear before attempting to choke him in the terminal. The Harvard University Extension School student is undergoing treatment at Massachusetts General Hospital and will be held until a hearing Monday determines whether he is “too dangerous to be released on bail,” the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office said in the article.
That’s all for this week – safe travels!