absolutely alex’s adventures & times

Twenty years ago, air travel was exciting, fun and exotic.

Taking a plane to one’s destination was part of the journey and signaled the start of the vacation. People would dress well to board a plane. The flight attendants were courteous and helpful. Meals were not great, of course, but it was not the joke that it is now, if one even gets meal services on board these days.

Planes would take off on time and get to the designation on schedule, or at times, even early. The state of the airplanes’ interiors was usually immaculate, seats would recline smoothly and things on the plane actually worked.

Upon disembarkation, bags that were checked would show up at the designated carousel and the passenger goes off to continue with the business or vacation that the plane had pleasantly taken him to.

But of course, things are no longer these rosy scenarios anymore.

Air travel passengers nowadays are forced to start their journey hours before the time the plane is scheduled to depart, often having to arrive at least two hours ahead so that they could go through the chaotic scenes and long lines at the check-in counters, endure the mind-numbingly tedious process of airport security, stripping off jackets/ outerwear, shoes, belts, watches and what-nots, putting up with rude TSA officers and “random checks”, rushing to the gate, only to find that the flight is, inevitably, delayed.

Once the passenger is lucky enough to get on the plane, he might be trapped on the tarmac for easily half to an hour waiting for the plane’s turn to take-off, tolerate more surly service from the flight attendant who won’t give him a glass of water, cramped in a seat that was built for anorexic midgets.

Upon surviving the flight where one had to pay for a drink and meal, luggage retrieval could induce more blood pressure elevation as the passenger realizes that the checked luggage is lost.

Why do we endure the nightmare of air travel anymore?

Why has it become so painful?

Is there hope of things getting better any time soon?

Just recently, Delta and Northwest announced their merger and claim that they had to, in the face of higher oil prices and better weather more turbulence ahead for the industry. More airlines are reportedly following in their footsteps, such as United and Continental. 

But it does not look like mergers are the answers.

What benefits are there for passengers when there are fewer choices and fuller planes from reduced flights as airlines cut back duplication? Isn’t competition usually an incentive for lower prices and better service?

But with the mergers, prices are likely to go up while service could get worse. Passengers will soon be slapped with $25 surcharge for checking a second bag. What choices have they but to cough up and swallow the anger, since five out of the six major airlines are introducing it?

Mergers do not make for better in-flight service either. In fact, already substandard service by flight attendants might get worse as discontented employees feel more enraged by worse deals foisted on them from the mergers and their unions get more toothless, losing members’ benefits and pensions.

Flights are even less likely to be on schedule, as disgruntled pilots pay the companies back for the lousy deals and lower pay they might get after mergers by enacting legal work slow-downs and other industrial action. 

The state of air travel does not have to be such a disaster. US carriers could take a leaf from Asian carriers, who are constantly beating them in service, punctuality and price. Even with the heightened fears of terrorism, foreign airports put in place security checks that are a lot more discreet and hassle-free than those in US airports. Why not make flying less painful if it is possible?

Governments at all levels could also play a part by either building or upgrading more runways so that more planes can take off on time (bad for the environment, unfortunately), or stop airlines from cramming too many flights into existing airports, which make schedules impossible to keep and delays or cancellations the norm.

While the US works out an improvement in air travel, it is high time to revisit the introduction of a high-speed, efficient railway system that could serve as an alternative to flying.

Good models include the Swiss, French or Japanese systems. Those methods of traveling within the country are truly a breeze — show up at the station just a few minutes before the scheduled train, hop on and arrive in the middle of the destination city, not some outlying airport that requires a long drive to get to. The same way the will to build the nation’s systems of roads and freeways was summoned could be duplicated to create railways and tracks.

In the meantime, almost everybody has to fly one time or another, be it for leisure or business. It might not go back to the magical experience it used to be, but flying really does not have to remain in the sad state it has sunk to. Here’s another thought — if US airlines don’t shape up soon, the open-sky agreement that has just come into effect with Europe might make more travelers chose European carriers. Then, no amount of merger would be able to save them from their lousy business models or laughable lack of service standards. 

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As if air travel these days isn’t miserable enough already, (London Heathrow Airport Terminal 5, anyone?) the European Commission came up with an even more bone-headed idea to make passenger jets become truly torture chambers.

It has ruled that cellphones will now be able to penetrate airplanes flying over European airspace, the final bastion of peace and tranquility from the constant ringing of silly ringtones and people babbling away with no consideration to fellow passengers.

No thanks to a technology that will have small mobile phone base stations, called pico cells, placed in aircraft that will allow cellphone coverage in a plane. The plan for now is to have the system switched on only after the plane has taken off and is in a cruising altitude.

Cellphone calls from planes could start as early as next month, reports say. It will also cost more than calls made from land.

While it is up to individual airlines to decide if they wanted to introduce the system to their flights, Air France and Ryanair are two airlines that are already keen to introduce the cellphone technology into their aircrafts.

Would there be airlines brave enough to say, thanks but no thanks, and refuse to bring the system onboard? That airline would be sure to win a lot of customers who are hoping to get a few hours of peace on the flight.

Using a cellphone on a flight is not like having people use theirs on train rides or buses. Those are short commutes, compared with flights.

What happens if you had to sit through ten hours of a trans-Atlantic/ Pacific flight next to a whiny neighbor who insists on spilling every lurid detail of a bad relationship to the person on the other end of the cellphone line? You could not move away as easily as if you were on a bus or train. Neither could you jump out of the plane just to escape the noise and the yakking, the way you could a bus. Wouldn’t air rage incidences soar with the introduction of cellphone use on planes?

Of course, airlines could say there would be rules on cellphone use onboard. They could mollify customers dreading the onslaught of cellphone use by designating “quiet zones”, like they have on trains now. But let’s be real. There are bound to be the boorish types that would blatantly ignore these quiet zones or pretend not to be aware of them, destroying everyone’s peace. Are we then allowed to have them thrown out of the plane, along with their beloved cellphones?

Airlines might think businessmen will be the most eager to use the service and carry on working without missing a beat. But they might be surprised to know that many business executives greet the no-mobile phones rule on planes as a welcome respite, a time to catch up on reading or sleep and have some downtime to themselves.

The only hope left is that the rates to use cellphones on the planes would be so high that it would be prohibitive and discourage most people to bother switching on their phones and dialing.

Perhaps this is all inevitable, and it is just a matter of time before cellphones are used on airplanes. But the average human being is already so interconnected these days, it is bordering on the ridiculous. What is so bad about slowing down, turning off that mobile phone and reading or napping on the flight instead? It really will not kill us not to be in touch 24/7.

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Oh boy, here we go again.

More trouble from the world’s biggest passenger jetliner, the Airbus 380, the seven-storey tall behemoth of an airplane that could seat 449 passengers in its double decks.

Singapore Airlines, currently the only carrier to operate the aircraft, had to announce mechanical problems of the plane today for the second time in one week, which is also the fifth incident since it started flying the plane last October.

In this latest incident (Saturday evening Singapore time), the plane’s take-off was delayed by over an hour due to a problem in its fuel line, which carries fuel between the aircraft’s respective fuel tanks.

The plane was bound for Sydney from Singapore.

This latest incident comes at an awkward time for SIA. It had just claimed, in a damage control media blitz in Singapore, that the A380 has one of the best introduction record among all the types of aircraft it had brought into service.

SIA was also quick to dismiss its highly-publicized woes with the A380 as teething problems it would smooth out.

As for compensation for affected passengers, such as those who had their A380 flights canceled, SIA claims that the amounts are not substantial to the airline.

SIA has on hand three of the 29 A380s it ordered from Airbus.

It must be praying hard that the new craft that have yet to be delivered would somehow be less problematic than the ones already in operation and spare it from having to issue more embarrassing announcements of glitches.

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You would think that a company as financially-savvy as Singapore Airlines would have thought long and hard before making the decision to be the first airline to fly the super-sized jumbo jet, the Airbus 380. In retrospect, it seemed to be a decision driven by vanity over other factors.

The aircraft, which seats 470 under SIA’s configuration, might have given SIA the bragging rights to be the world’s first carrier to operate the plane. But it has also been providing the world’s most profitable airline a lot of unwanted publicity recently.

Just on Tuesday, SIA was forced to make the embarrassing announcement of grounding its A380 from making its Singapore to Sydney flight, and scrambling to place the stranded passengers on other planes to Sydney. Passengers were reportedly left high and dry for six hours before they could get alternative flights.

The fanfare and media coverage SIA received from being the only airline operating three A380s from Singapore to Sydney, London, and soon, Tokyo, very quickly turned into damage control operations, as the A380s have already generated four well-publicized failures in the few short months it had been in service since October.

The most recent incident was attributed to a pump failure. It suffered other mechanical issues, such as rolling off the tarmac in January, a fuel pump defect in February and an issue with its brakes in early March.

SIA is putting a brave face on these glitches, saying that the aircraft’s reliability had been “generally excellent”. “Its entry-into-service record has been substantially better than any other new aircraft type that we’ve received. While there will be teething issues, we will treat them carefully and cautiously – and won’t be rushing to put a plane into the air which isn’t 100 per cent good to go,” an SIA spokesman told the media.

It had better work out these teething problems and get a grip on them quickly.

SIA’s selling point and its differentiation with a lot of other airlines is its well-deserved reputation not only for first-class service and a young and well-maintained fleet of planes, but importantly, its reliable punctuality. These attributes keep it ahead of the competition, enabling it to charge a premium that many other airlines cannot. If SIA keeps having to issue press statements about one mechanical failure or another of its A380, those are not the kind of publicity that would be helpful to its reputation nor its bottom line.

The A380 flights had reportedly been attracting brisk business due to the novelty factor. But this series of negative public relations is bound to hold potential passengers back from jumping on the A380 bandwagon. No one likes facing flight delays, especially not if they had to pay a premium to get a seat on the A380. What a nightmare it would be to have to reschedule meetings or other arrangements due to the delays.

The delays could also be costly to SIA. Not only do they have to find capacity in a hurry to take care of grounded customers while the plane is being worked on, they would also have to compensate them, if not monetarily, at least for goodwill, in the form of vouchers or other gifts. Let’s hope they have set aside a sizable budget to deal with contingencies like these.

SIA has ordered another 16 A380s, with an option for more. Looking at SIA’s experience with its A380s, other airlines must be glad they did not plunge first into getting the bragging rights of operating the largest jumbo jet ever.

Perhaps the A380s’ mechanical problems are not surprising, given the two-year delay in the delivery by Airbus of the A380 due to various wiring setbacks. The first generation release of any new product has always been and will always be problematic. All this should have been harbingers for SIA. It might now have learned its lesson and be reminded to be more circumspect before rushing to buy new untested planes and putting them into operation.

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Before the Airbus 380 superjumbo actually carried any passengers, Singapore Airlines – the first to fly the plane – had furiously marketed its super luxurious first-class “suites” as the centerpieces of its new planes which would set new standards in air travel.

Each private suite is enclosed with sliding doors and roller blinds for privacy. And within it, double beds.

When that was first unveiled during the delivery of the world’s largest jetliner to Singapore Airlines in mid-October, petals of flowers were seen strewn on the bed, along with luxurious duvets and covers designed by the French fashion house of Givenchy.

So you couldn’t fault anyone for thinking that the set-up was meant to invoke romance and hint of its ability for passengers to join the mile-high club. Even Airbus’ chief executive Thomas Enders was heard telling the media that he would love to book one of those suites for his 25th wedding anniversary.

Amorous couples looking for new heights to scale quickly booked their tickets with Singapore Airlines on the A380 (Each ticket costs around US$7,160 for the Singapore to Sydney route).

But like a leopard doesn’t change its spots, strait-laced Singapore would probably always be prime and proper.

Singapore Airlines found itself in the awkward position of issuing a public statement appealing to passengers of those coveted suites to refrain from sexual activities. Or at least, if they had to, they ought to be quiet. The explanation Singapore Airlines gave for the rule was that the suites were not soundproof and they did not wish to “offend” other passengers or cabin crew with the sounds emanating from the suites. Singapore Airlines also added that the suites are not completely sealed.

“All we ask of customers, wherever they are on our aircraft, is to observe standards that don’t cause offence to other customers and crew,” Singapore Airlines said in a statement. “Nothing different applies for our Singapore Airlines Suites customers.”

“If couples used our double beds to engage in inappropriate activity, we would politely ask them to desist,” the airline’s spokesman told the Times of London.

You just know it’s the sort of rule that is bound to be broken constantly. Afterall, if raunchy couples couldn’t restrain themselves when they only had bathrooms or their seats before, the double beds and designer sheets are going to be even less of a deterrent. And let’s be realistic here, what could the cabin crew do to enforce it? Knock on the door and insist a couple stop? Throw them off the plane? Not only would it be a tough job for the poor cabin crew to enforce the rule, they would probably look the other way and pretend nothing’s going on – unless other passengers complain.

As you can imagine, this new twist has somewhat caused turbulence to some couples’ plans.

“So they’ll sell you a double bed, and give you privacy and endless champagne and then say you can’t do what comes naturally?” Tony Elwood, who booked one of the cabins on the superjet, told the Times of London. “They seem to have done everything they can to make it romantic, short of bringing round oysters,” Mr Elwood’s partner Julie said. “I’d say they shouldn’t really complain, should they?”

At those prices, they shouldn’t, indeed.

China’s Great Wall, Rome’s Colosseum and Peru’s Machu Picchu were the top choices of around 100 million global votes cast in a contest to decide which landmarks worldwide are worthy of being anointed the title of the “New Seven Wonders of the World”.

The world’s most famous ode of love by a Mogul emperor to his wife, India’s Taj Mahal; Brazil’s Statue of Christ Redeemer that looms over Rio de Janeiro; Jordan’s ancient city Petra in the desert and Mexico’s Chichen Itza pyramid complete the lineup of the other architectural marvels emerging tops in the global contest. 20 sites in total were the finalists from which the top seven were chosen.

The winners were announced today in Portugal, which didn’t have any of its landmarks in the running, after the campaign was launched by the private organization New7Wonders Foundation in 1999. Beginning last year, people were encouraged to have a say in the naming of the new seven wonders either online or by phone. The contest ended at midnight yesterday.

Some countries have taken the contest seriously, such as Jordan, which lobbied hard for votes for Petra, going as far as to select a beauty queen, Miss Petra, as its mascot. Its hard work seems to have paid off.

Egypt’s Great Pyramids of Giza is the only structure that still exists today from the list of original seven wonders of the world, which counted the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus amongst the list. The list was first established by Greek scholars, the most notable being Antipater of Sidon in the 2th century B.C.

Given its venerable status, the Egyptian pyramids were exempt from the contest and were made an honorary new seven wonders member. But that was only after Egyptian officials complained of the “insult” to the pyramids to have to compete in the contest.

Other controversies the contest had stirred up included disapproval from UNESCO, which isn’t endorsing it, and critics that say the contest is gimmicky and profit-oriented.

But all that certainly hadn’t stopped around 100 million people from participating and countries from campaigning for their nominated sites, culminating in the results today.

Happy mother’s day to all moms out there!

Today’s post, though, focuses on amazing animals who were long-haul travellers in unusual circumstances and lived to tell their not-so-comfortable tales.

First, a cat now named China, who survived a 35-day freight passage from China to US without food and water.

China the cat (AP picture)

China was found in a box, of all things, of motorcycle helmets, which made its way to North Carolina. It’s now being vaccinated, quarantined and monitored, but vets fear that it may have to be euthanized. The co-worker of the guy who found China is hoping to adopt it, and hopes that the cat will make it.

Vets told news agencies that cats have the amazing ability to survive this long without food or water as their bodies can adjust. Their kidneys make up for the lack of water and receive amounts of moisture from condensation. Looks like cats will have better chances of survival in a holocaust than us human beings!

The other curious animal story – that of a Magellanic penguin, a natural inhabitant of the cold southern tip of Chile, which somehow swam 3,000 miles way off course, to end up in Peru’s more temperate climate, about 14 degrees south of the equator. Maybe it just wanted a vacation in a warmer climate.

AFP picture

What’s even more unusual was that the confused little penguin, who had an injured wing, appears to have made the journey alone.

Authorities in Peru’s Paracus natural reserve are hoping to have it healed and returned to its natural habitat. That’s because the natural reserve has an abundance of a different breed of penguins, the Humboldt penguins, which might reject the newcomer, according to news reports.

The little Megellanic penguin would presumably have plenty of tales to tell the others when it gets home.

The International Herald Tribute highlighted Venice’s first female and foreign-born gondolier, Alexandra Hai, and her travails at getting and keeping the job.

NYT picture

But what really caught my eye further in the story was that women are still restricted from waiting on tables at St Mark’s Square. The story said that the first female waitress at St Mark’s Square’s cafes was hired only eight years ago, when Ljubica Gunj was permitted in 1999.

Eight years ago!

That’s after people have been to the moon and back countless times, the cold war had ended and communism fallen, apartheid had been reversed in South Africa, and more women had become heads of states, even in male-dominated bastions like Latin America and Asia.

Yet, women still can’t freely wait on tables in Venice, at least not on the piazza, only indoors.

The Venetians could argue that Hai is incompetent at steering the gondola, that it needs the strength she doesn’t have, she can’t sing, etc. We’d never know the truth as both sides dispute each others’ accounts.

But what arguments do they have against women waitressing out at the piazza? That cups of Venetian coffee are too heavy for them? That the crowds at St Mark’s Square would be too hard for women to handle? That female waitresses can’t dodge the pigeons as quickly as the men?

Bollocks, I say. It’s most likely to do with keeping the great tips to be made to the men who’ve traditionally worked there. It doesn’t take a genius to know that the Square crawls with tourists during peak season and many of them want to sit outside to people watch or just enjoy the place, while they pay for extremely overpriced drinks.

How could Italy, a member of the European Union and G8, tolerate something like this?

As travellers and consumers, we should ensure that this type of sexist behaviour isn’t condoned. Go find Hai to peddle you down the canals, or sip your coffee at places where they have waitresses outside. And leave them big tips.

Afterall, if the male gondoliers are really better than Hai at steering or singing as they claim, or waiters do a better job out at St Mark’s Square, they shouldn’t have any fear of dealing with a little female competition, should they?

If you’ve ever been to Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia cathedral, you’d understand why it’s the city’s top attraction, with more than 2 million visitors annually.

You’d also get the hype, as pictures don’t do justice to the way the gothic towers seem alive and breathing, looming eerily over visitors, while its intricate carvings transfix one to stare all day.

Besides being a UNESCO World Heritage site, Gaudi’s masterpiece is also easily one of the country’s most popular attractions and probably one of the most recognizable symbols of Spain. So what could possess the authorities to risk jeopardizing its top tourist attraction?

The cathedral, which has been around since 1883 and survived the Spanish Civil War, is now threatened by one of the most persistent and formidable forces ever: progress.

The authorities are building a tunnel for a high-speed train between Barcelona and the capital Madrid, which would half the present 5-hour trip. This tunnel is going to be 1.5 metres from the cathedral’s foundation, the IHT reports, with its exacavation likely to cause the water-logged earth to subside under the cathedral’s weight, leading to cracks on the exterior or 65-meter pillars that support the cathedral’s nave. Tiles from the cathedral’s ceilings could also fall off.

The authorities have taken a rather uncompromising stance towards the issue. Spain’s transport minister was quoted as saying she would be “very surprised” if the work didn’t go as planned.

Residents around the cathedral are reportedly fighting against the tunnel, fearing damage to their homes from the construction.

Academics have spoken out on the side of the cathedral, raising alarms on the insanity of potentially damaging one of the country’s most magnificent sights.

While it’s heartening to see Spain’s astonishing economic progess after the years of stagnation during the Civil War, this incident is rather uncharacteristic of the Spanish passion for living. Most visitors admire the Spanish way of life of working hard, but also living well and partying hard. But if an international icon were to give way to something as pedestrian as a high-speed train line between two Spanish cities, that would be thoroughly disappointing.

By all means build that train that would take businessmen faster between the two cities, but there has to be alternative routes that could be used to avoid damaging the Sagrada Familia. What makes Spain special is its cultural attractions and unusual architecture, not high-speed trains that are proliferating all over the world. It would be a sad day indeed when countries lose their unique features, all in the name of economic progress.

If you are a travel fan, there’s a contest out there for you to determine which global landmarks should be the deemed, “The new seven wonders of the world”.

The concept is borne of the list of the seven most remarkable constructions in the ancient world, originally drawn up by Greek historian Herodotus. These include the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and the Egyptian pyramids at Giza – the only survivor from the list.

At www.new7wonders.com, you could vote on which sites should be the heirs to that legacy.

Most of the 21 finalists are shoo-ins like the Taj Mahal and the Roman Colosseum. It’s fun but hard to choose between all of them. Who hasn’t been blown away by the majesty and architectural breadth of the Great Wall of China? Or struck by Machu Picchu’s spirituality? And what would Paris be without the looming presence and endearing symbol of its Eiffel Tower? But how do you decide when there’s such abundance?

The contest is run by the New7Wonders Foundation, a private organization founded by Swiss adventurer Bernard Weber, who is on a mission to protect mankind’s heritage around the world. The group uses money raised from donations to fund restoration and preservation efforts, according to the foundation’s website.

The leading seven will be announced on July 7 this year, in Lisbon, Portugal. A neutral location, I suppose, as it doesn’t have a site in the running.