shutdowns, winter weather, and air travel

There I am minding my own business in the PreCheck line at JFK Terminal 4 on Christmas night when I'm randomly pulled for secondary screening. 

"Over there," a TSA agent said with a shrug. "Someone will come to pat you down." But the first someone is a female agent. We stare at each other from opposite sides of the full-body scanner. 

"I'm okay if you're okay," I say gamely. 

"Nope," comes the instant reply. "I'm already not getting paid for working tonight ..." 

          Copyright (c) 2019 JoeSentMe.com Reprinted with permission ... subscribe here 

The anecdote above was told by Joe Brancatelli, my favorite travel journalist, and it introduces the worries I have about my next trip. By the way, I've subscribed to Joe's weekly column for years and find it a good read and chock full of essential information. I quote this story as it introduces, quite nicely, my concerns about my flight next Wednesday to CDG.  Other than packing and other fun stuff, of course.

(1) Standing in line... The US government is partially shut down, as everyone knows, and the shutdown is affecting air travel. Big time.

TSA security screening. While we complain about the lines — having to take off our shoes, remove liquids, and deal with other inconveniences — security screenings are an essential service provided by the federal government. TSA employees are required to work during the shutdown, but they're not getting their paychecks (due today). Screeners have been calling in sick, and I can't blame them, but the result is long[er] lines at security.

Air Traffic control — absolutely essential for air travel to happen safely — is a highly skilled but stressful job. Air traffic controllers manage everything from takeoffs to inflight routings, approaches to landings. Rigorous training is required for this job, and without this service provided by experienced federal employees behind the scenes, the world economy would crash. ATC employees are dealing with the same stresses as the TSA screeners — working without being paid.

(2) Winter weather... As if that weren't enough, winter weather happens, even at SFO. Though San Francisco doesn't get cold or snowy, it does get winter storms. When visibility is impaired, the airport is forced to close down one of the two landing runways. This can delay arrivals by an hour or even more... and a delayed arrival translates into an equally delayed departure. This means hours waiting at the airport and arriving at my destination hours late.


(3) Immigration and customs... Immigration control agents are often the first persons to welcome us back home again, but sick-outs mean fewer agents, longer lines, and wasted time for thousands of travelers. Would you rather be standing in queue at the airport? or home again with your family?


So here's my word of appreciation for federal employees and the job they do ... and my word of annoyance (keeping politics out of it) at legislative leaders who won't bring funding bills to the floor for a vote. Let's get essential services funded.

copyright (c) 2019 by Ourisman Travel LLC. All rights reserved. We provide Virtuoso and other Preferred Partner amenities as an affiliate of Brownell, a Virtuoso® Member. If you have comments on this column, or questions about booking travel, email me or visit my website.

flight cancelled from Palm Beach to Dallas

view from our Premier Ocean View Room at Four Seasons Palm Beach

We checked out of the Four Seasons Palm Beach at 6:15 this morning and headed to PBI for our flight back to San Francisco. Check-in was quick, security was non-eventful, and we were waiting at the gate ... when the dreaded announcement was made. "American Airlines flight 499 to Dallas has been cancelled due to snow in Dallas. Please make your way to the ticket counter to reschedule your flight."

My first reaction was consternation, but my second thought was to recall the advice of travel journalist Joe Brancatelli. Don't wait in line. Call your airline's 800#, which I did (while walking to the ticket counter). Rather than hold for 3-6 minutes (as my cell phone charge needs to last all day!), I elected to have American phone me back.

While standing behind dozens of passengers in a line that never moved an inch, I answered the return call, reviewed our options, and snagged the two remaining First Class seats that would get us back to SFO today. The phone agent then arranged to get my bags transferred to the new flights, I then printed out our new boarding passes from a kiosk.

The line still had not moved an inch!

So, thank you, Joe, for your great tip! Even though it's a subscription based site, joesentme.com is an invaluable source of travel advice and bargains. I highly recommend it.

By the way, FS Palm Beach is a very nice resort, and we very much enjoyed our stay. Pictured above is the view from our Oceanfront room, well worth the upgrade from an Ocean View. The room is significantly larger (almost a Jr. Suite in size) with a direct view over the pool towards the ocean. Ocean View rooms have an angled view of the ocean, very similar to the layout at FS Maui.

copyright (c) 2013 by David Ourisman LLC. All rights reserved. If you have comments on this column, or questions about booking travel, email me or visit my website.

$29 for a seat and $45 for a carry-on?

In the spirit of insanity, Spirit Airlines has just announced an absurd new policy: they are starting to charge customers up to $45 for carry-on bags.

Most of the legacy carriers are now charging to check your bags, another bad business decision. Travel journalist Joe Brancatelli makes an interesting observation. While airline bean counters celebrate the revenue that these charges bring in, they are blind to the fact that this policy is costing them passenger revenue. Passengers are booking away from the legacy carriers. They are choosing passenger-friendly carriers such as Southwest and JetBlue that do not charge to check your bags.

You don't have to take this nonsense. Vote with your wallets! Think it's absurd to pay $45 for your carry on? Then don't fly on Spirit Airlines. If enough of you do this, the company will either (1) accede to market pressure and change this absurd new policy or (2) deservedly go out of business.

But here's the biggest absurdity. Spirit Airlines is advertising some $29 fares (check out Atlanta to Myrtle Beach in August). What does it mean when your carry-on's space in the overhead compartment is worth more than the seats that Spirit provides for their passengers?



P.S. — This is one of my pet peeves — too many passengers aren't smart about voting with their wallets. Remember years ago when American Airlines was advertising "more room in coach" — 34 inches — for pretty much the same price as everyone else. Had we voted with our wallets, we'd have 34 inches of leg room everywhere - but we didn't. So the next time you're scrunched up in a cramped, narrow seat on a transcontinental flight, think about it. Reward airlines who treat us well - and punish the airlines who treat us badly.


$45 for a carry on (search here on Google)

copyright (c) 2010 by David Ourisman LLC. All rights reserved. If you have comments on this column, or questions about booking travel, email me or visit my website.
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low business class fares to Europe

Joe Bracatelli is the publisher of Joe Sent Me, one of the most informative travel websites out there and well worth the annual subscription. He has alerted me to a special 4-Day Sale, New York-Amsterdam, on OpenSkies. Fly business class from $1,609 roundtrip, taxes and fees included, and enjoy a 6-foot long 180º flatbed. You must book by September 12, but you can travel anytime between October 15, 2008 and March 31, 2009 with a three-day minimum stay.

Want an even lower price to Europe? Eurofly has $399 round-trip fares in coach to Italy (inclusive of fuel surcharges, but about $90 in taxes are additional). Book by September 12, and fly JFK to Rome, Naples, Palermo, or Bologna on selected flights in September and October.

After you book your flights, contact your Virtuoso travel consultant to fill out your itinerary with some great values at the world's finest five star luxury hotels.


Virtuoso travel consultant (search here on Google)


copyright (c) 2008 by David J. Ourisman. All rights reserved. If you have comments on this column, or questions about booking travel, email me or visit my website.
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the ethics of blogging

copyright (c) 2007 by David J. Ourisman. All rights reserved. This article is published at http://TravelHorizons.blogspot.com. I am a Virtuoso travel consultant, specializing in luxury travel. Please visit my travel website at http://MetaphorTravel.com.

I have been writing Travel Horizons since October 4, 2006. At some point after I started periodically posting articles, I took the good advice of my friend and fellow travel writer Joe Brancatelli and figured out how to do the RSS feed thing.

I have just made some changes in the way that Travel Horizons is syndicated.

Why? I made a very frustrating discovery this past weekend. It seems that another blog (whose URL I will not reproduce here to avoid rewarding "Gary" with a link) has plagiarized virtually everything that I have written since I began this blog. I have documented 39 articles that were reprinted -- pictures, text, and all -- at this other site.

In one sense, it's flattering that someone would think highly enough of my writing to single out my blog for instant republishing.

But on the other other hand, it feels terrible to be disrespected as an individual, to have my intellectual property stolen, and -- incidentally -- to have my hits shrink to a fraction of what they had been.

In addition to being a travel consultant, I am an academic. I teach as an adjunct professor in Berkeley, CA. Plagiarism is the primary sin in the world of academia. Properly footnoted, you can legitimately quote virtually anything in a publication. John Donahue, one of my favorite professors as a doctoral student, once described scholarship as "piracy with footnotes." But to take someone else's ideas and words and to present them as your own is a significant ethical violation.

It is worthwhile for all of us who publish in the blogosphere to be reminded of this. Perhaps each of us, at one time or another, has written about an intriguing idea that we have read in someone else's blog ... and neglected to link back to the source of our inspiration. It's all about giving credit -- intellectual credit and credit in terms of google's rankings. It's the right thing to do, and having been the victim of plagiarism, I pledge to be scrupulous about giving attribution in the future.

So, for those of you who subscribe to my RSS feed, I've made some pragmatic changes that you need to know about:

(1) I'll only be publishing a "short feed." The first 255 characters of every blog will consist of a copyright notice, links back to my own blog and website, and a word about my work as a travel consultant. If "Gary" continues to republish what I've written, he'll just be publishing links back here. (Once I see what actually gets republished on "Gary," I might be able to take away some of the self-serving promotion. I hope so!)

(2) If you subscribe to my RSS feed, just double-click on the title of the article, and you'll get the full text.

Otherwise, nothing will change. I will continue to write about travel because I love travel. I love travel because it opens our minds to new ways of thinking. I love travel because it enriches our day-to-day experience of life by exposing us to new ways of being in the world. I love travel because it expands the horizons of our imaginations. Travel Horizons -- that's what my blog is about. And, as Stephen Colbert likes to say, "That's the word for today."


If you have comments on this column, or questions about booking travel, email me or visit my website.
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