Here’s the answer to an increasingly popular question among traveling backpackers: Can you take military MRE rations on an airplane.
flying
7 Cool Ways to Recycle an Airplane
These days, recycling is cool. And so are airplanes – even the Honda Civic of the skies that is the 737.
That makes recycling airplanes an off-the-charts, Ricardo Montalban-level of cool. I’m not talking about turning Cessnas into aluminum cans. I’m talking about turning Boeing jumbo jets into backpacker hostels, or shady old military cargo planes into jungle restaurants.
Here are a few really cool places where you can eat, sleep and/or drink in a recycled airplane. The small but vibrant Costa Rican town of Manuel San Antonio seems to have the largest number, per capita, of such projects. (NOTE: If you know of any others, e-mail me and I’ll include them in a future post).
Not So High-Flying in Costa Rica
El Avion (Manuel San Antonio)
This Fairchild C-123 is linked to the Iran-Contra Affair – but these days, it’s as benign as a glassful of house-made sangria. You’ll find ticos and touristas side-by-side chomping bar food and downing cans of Imperial. And enjoying an unmatched ambience – perched on a cliff, with the occassional monkey cruising by (especially if there’s an unattended trash can nearby). El Avion has history, scenery and a low price. Some of these aircraft carry a hefty price to enter, but at El Avion, a few colones for a pint is all you need. Last Visited – 2003
Hotel Costa Verde (Manuel San Antonio)
Most of the Hotel Costa Verde is pretty typical upscale jungle fare. Unless you book passage in the 727 suite. This room is not only cool for [...]
Airlines See Declines in Customer Performance
Bad passenger attitudes are the biggest obstacles facing air carriers, according to a recently completed annual study. This study comes just after the release of information claiming airlines are taking the hassle out of flying and delivering their best performances in four years.
“This job would be great if it wasn’t for the customers,” said Randal Graves, customer service vice-president for U.S. Airways.
From bumbling back-country fliers taking their first post-Sept. 11 flights to high-maintenance upgrade-seekers, fliers are driving most airline employees nuts. The only respite from overly entitled passengers squawking their constant demands are younger eco-travelers.
“We’ve found that backpackers, despite dread-locks that stink up the cabin, are laid-back and less-demanding of gate, cabin and luggage staff,” said Mike Kitchens, a spokesman for a private research firm that studied how big of a pain in the butt customers are for airline employees. “We also found that business-class passengers reduced their whininess by five percent for the 2008 fiscal year.”
The study was released Tuesday, rating U.S.-based legacy carriers and select international carriers. Regional carriers were not surveyed, as both passengers and staff members consider the niche a lost cause on both sides of the satisfaction issue. According to Aeroflot spokesman Leonid Kuhlyevski, the Russian giant did not participate in the “decadent Western survey.”
“You do not fly Aeroflot,” said Kuhlyevski. “Aeroflot fly you!”
Among legacy carriers, cabin crew complaints are at 7.45 per 10 passengers, up from 6.2 per 10 in FY07. Southwest Airlines crews logged the largest number of complaints due to smirking passengers [...]
My Top 5 Flights – Plus, a Site for Flight Geeks
The rise of Facebook as a great time-waster is pretty well-documented, and now aviation geeks have their own way to flush hours down the lavatory: Let me introduce FlightMemory.com, a Web site that lets you input all your commercial flights. It then tracks your time and mileage and plots it on a map. You can even order a poster based on your flight paths. (Thanks to Things in the Sky for the discovery.)
What’s kind of useful is that you can choose to enter the bare-minimum of details, or delve into
excruciating detail about every single thing the airline, TSA and airport employees did wrong – or you can praise them for those times when “customer service” isn’t a punchline.
I’m still working on getting my flights in, but I’ve made some headway. It’s quite a lot of fun, especially since it appears to be of German origin and translated by members of The Scorpions while they were on tour with Van Halen circa 1985 (“We can now offer you some new thingies for your pleasure – introducing the FlightMemory shop!” … tell me you couldn’t hear Klaus Meine saying that!).
Help Wandering Justin Find His Next Destination!
From blog photos
I’m looking for a new travel destination, and I need your help.
Now, in a perfect word, I’d board my own Austin Powers-esque 747 and tell the captain to take me someplace where:
there’s enough people to be convenient and friendly, but not enough to be crowded
I can see all sorts of awesome creatures (and possibly eat a few of them)
there are glaciers for me to explore
I can eat all sorts of weird-but-tasty foods
volcanoes rumble and geysers splash
the scenery never stops boggling my mind
I can enjoy a few bizarre activities
there’s enough city life for the nighttime hours to be as fun as the day
I can explore vast caves
At least several times per day, I turn to my wife and say “Did I really just see that?”
Basically, New Zealand, Australia, Costa Rica and the state of Washington would have to crash together in a collision to shake the world. And I probably shouldn’t hold my breath on that.
I’ve done a little of my own homework. Iceland is full of geothermal and glacial playgrounds, not to mention a Nordic smorgasbord of whacky foods. Japan, to a westerner, is frankly the land of WTF?, so I could really see that as an option. I’m not sure there’s enough isolated rural feel to slake my thirst for solitude, but I’m still willing to consider it.
So, my friends … where should I go next?
These are off the list because we’ve been there recently.
Australia
Belize
Canada
Costa Rica
Mexico
New Zealand
We’d prefer to avoid Europe unless you can make a really [...]
Grab a flight … like now!
So how many times do you talk to people about traveling, and they’ll say “I wish I could go (fill in the blank”?
Well, if there’s ever a time to do that awesome trip, this is it. Oil is cheap. The economy sucks, which means that airlines are doing all sorts of stuff to get your butt in a seat. The economy is also making it tough for those who don’t have trust funds, but seriously: prioritize. Cancel your cable for a few months. Eat a bit less sushi. Get a cheaper cell phone. Put off buying that enormous flat-screen monitor. Drink less beer. Put that bike you never ride on Craigslist. Sell your plasma. Do whatever it takes and take advantage of a nice combination of a relatively strong dollar and cheap flights.
For instance, round trips from LA to Sydney on Qantas are about $750. That’s ludicrous, and it means you can’t afford NOT to go. You’ll come away with far more memories and stories than watching HBO, that’s for sure.
A Tip of the Hat to the Boeing 747
A preface from Wandering Justin: I originally wrote this for another blog, but it seems relevant here. Enjoy!
Every time I go to band practice, I take the 143 freeway past Sky Harbor. I always look to my right and see a British Airways 747 parked at Terminal 4, getting ready to head to London.
And I wish I was getting on that plane. Not so much because it’s going to London, but because … well, I can’t explain it in one sentence. But here are the thoughts that jumble through my head:
-First, there is a certain something special and exciting about a 747. It’s an icon of style, adventure and anticipation. You don’t take a 747 from Charlotte to Pittsburgh. No, That’s what takes you to Hong Kong, to Paris, to Sydney, to Johannesburg. From the first time I rode one on the way to Germany as a 5-year-old boy, it has made me feel something no other airplane can replicate. The 777 is a marvelous piece of technology, and the A380 is built on a mind-boggling scale. But no aircraft save the Concorde cuts the same image on final approach, or puts that flutter in my stomach as I cross from the jetway into its fuselage. Sadly, less than a handful of American-based airlines still fly it.
-Second, it being a British Airways flight, I know that the people aboard will not be treated like cattle. Foreign airlines seem to have figured out how not to nickel-and-dime passengers to death, and [...]
