Mummies and Melodrama

"Reality" TV strikes again in creating a dreadful television series

I've been captivated by things Egyptian since I visited Egypt last year as part of a Society American Travel Writers Freelance Council meeting that included an audience with Dr. Zahi Hawass, the media-savvy, imperious and very gifted secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities. Dr. Hawass is an aggressive advocate for the protection of ancient Egyptian treasures. He has developed an ego the size of the Great Pyramid at Giza and has a high profile, personally escorting VIPs around the sites, personally announcing every significant discovery, whether or not he made it and appearing on numerous legitimate documentaries.

Against this background, I was looking forward to the History Channel's "Chasing Mummies" series that debuted last night. I have never written a television review-type post, but this misguided show merits a two thumbs down.

The plot was that a television crew was following Dr. Hawass and his team, including a comely intern, during the excavation of an early pyramid at Saqqara near Cairo. Comely intern Zoe, who unexpectedly showed up in place of intern Clare/Claire, but her papers were in order, so she was permitted to stay, often getting in the way. But Zoe is cute so she was invited to take her first look inside the pyramid. After a disjointed exploration, Zoe was improbably permitted, by one of Dr. Hawass's team, to stay in the labyrinthian corridors by herself "for five minutes" to take pictures, which she did with her little point-and-shoot while the chamber was brilliantly lit by television cameras.

Zoe's foot got jammed. Someone turned off the lights and locked the gates, and Zoe became reality TV's equivalent of the silent-film heroine tied to the railroad tracks. If this program were to be believed, only Dr. Hawass, who had to be called from Cairo where he was doing a book signing, had the ability to unlock the gate and turn on the lights. It was contrived, lame and added nothing to the body of knowledge about ancient Egypt.

And then, in the second part, Dr. Hawass and his team traveled to "an oasis near Cairo" to demolish villagers' homes that were built over ancient graves that contained mummies. Curious children watched homes being knocked down, and suddenly, the earth was pocked with holes that presumably led to underground burial chambers. An articulated loader, which was referred to as a bulldozer, broke through the surface of the ground, got stuck and then got unstuck.

Speaking of stuck, I stuck it out through the first episode, but I won't waste my time on another. New York Times television critic Neil Genzlinger didn't think any more of the program than I did. In his review, he called it "an annoying new show." The History Channel's website calls this a "documentary series." They sure have a wry sense of humor! In fact, this entire program was a joke.

Desperate Delta Flyer With Diarhhea Denied Biz Class Lav

And as the late Paul Harvey used to say, "And now for the rest of the story!"

"A man who says he desperately needed to use an airplane bathroom after eating something bad in Honduras faces a federal charge after being accused of twisting a flight attendant's arm to get to the lavatory," according to Associated Press dispatch.

Joao Correa, a coach class passenger on a Delta flight 406 on March 28, had a acute "bathroom emergency" With a beverage cart blocking the aisle, he claims that he asked if he could use the lavatory in business class, but was told that he couldn't, because Federal Aviation Administration policy "requires passengers on international flights to use the restroom in their seating class."

Increasingly desperate, Correa said that he ran for the business class lavatory but flight attendant Stephanie Scott put up her arm to block him. And here the story diverges. Correa says that grabbed her to keep his balance, while Scott claims that he grabbed it, pulled it down and twisted it. The Atlanta Journal Constitution reported that Scott called the captain who permitted Correa to use the business class bathroom -- presumably before it was too late.

When he was finished, Correa returned to his coach class seat, but the incident took a particularly nasty turn when the plane landed in Atlanta. Correa was arrested after the plane landed in Atlanta, charged with interfering with a flight crew, a felony, jailed for two nights and finally released on bond after appearing before a US magistrate.

The AJC quoted Correa as saying, “I’m devastated. I’m so traumatized emotionally. It’s been really, really hard on me. I’ve never had any event with the police in my life.” He is 43 years old, lives in Ohio with h is wife and two children and is a marketing manager with Philips Healthcare who had been a business trip to Central America.

The media reported that Delta spokeswoman Susan Elliott released a statement saying flight crews "do everything within the limits of the law to ensure the safety and security of our passengers."

The Consumerist, a website that didn't opt for delicacy or diplomacy, commented, "Had he [Correa] followed their [the crew's] instructions, Delta would have had an entire flight full of angry, complaining, and sickened passengers, along with quite likely a lawsuit from the man they forced to shit himself because they were too busy passing out drinks. Instead, Delta loses nothing, the TSA* continues to say this is in everyone's best interest, and Joao Correa is charged with a felony because he had diarrhea on an airplane." *The FAA actually, but the two agencies' initials are not germane to this unfortunate incident.

International Travel Trade Organization Weighs in on 'Unbundling'

Business travel trade reps press Congressional committee on hidden airline fees

I hardly ever simply post a press release, but this one from the Business Travel Coalition, founded in 1994 "to bring transparency to industry and government policies and practices so that customers can influence issues of strategic importance to their organizations" seems interesting enough to share it as it was released. My own comments, also in red italics, follow the text of the release.

Industry Survey Results Reveal Significant Concern Over Airline Unbundling Practices

U.S. DOT Rules Required To Protect Consumers, Managed Travel Programs

JULY 13, 2010, WASHINGTON, DC - Business Travel Coalition (BTC) today published results of a survey of 188 travel industry professionals from 11 countries, including corporate travel managers and travel agency executives, regarding airline product unbundling and ancillary fees. These survey results are being released ahead of a July 14 U.S. House Transportation Subcommittee on Aviation hearing regarding airline fees at which BTC is providing testimony.
The overriding message from survey participants is that ancillary fees are wrecking havoc on corporate managed travel programs and the U.S. Department of Transportation must, through it Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, require airlines to make add-on fee data easily accessible not only on their websites, but also to the travel agency channel through any GDS in which an airline has agreed to participate.

The following top-line results represent a sea change in thinking among travel industry professionals regarding government oversight in commercial air transportation:

• 100% of corporate travel managers indicated that unbundling and these extra fees have caused serious problems for their managed travel programs.

• 86% of travel managers believe that airlines, absent government regulation, will not make fair, adequate and readily accessible disclosure of their extra fees and charges so that travel managers and/or their TMCs can do comparison shopping of the all-in prices for air travel across carriers.

• 95% of travel managers support the proposal that the U.S. DOT require airlines to make ancillary fee data available and easily accessible to the travel agency channel through any GDS in which that airline has agreed to participate.

• 95% of travel managers do not support an airline distribution model wherein access to airfare and ancillary services content is available only on airlines’ websites, or through direct connections to multiple airlines’ inventory systems.

“Importantly, survey participants are business people who, as a general proposition, do not favor government intervention in a marketplace. However, as with BTC, who testified four times since 1999 against passenger rights legislation, these industry experts lived through 10 years of airline stonewalling and broken promises and finally realized that the airlines were never going to take extended tarmac delays seriously until made to do so, said BTC Chairman Kevin Mitchell. “Travel managers and travel agency executives do not want to wait 10 years, or even 1 more year to see if the airlines will properly disclose their ancillary fees in all channels in which they sell their products - and thus already make their published, but now incomplete, fares available, he continued.”

Here are sample comments from survey participants:

• “Determining the actual cost of transportation is now so difficult that we cannot help departments prepare travel budgets for the following year.”

• “The comparison of different providers’ options is difficult as there are all-inclusive, partly-inclusive, status-inclusive, non-inclusive prices. At the moment the extra services and fees are not available for total cost calculation in our preferred channel, the GDS.”

• “I can no longer manage costs as the fees are hidden. There is no way to determine if the traveler paid for baggage or upgraded to business class.”

• “Because airlines are not forthcoming with information, we cannot relay the true cost of an itinerary to the traveler.”

• “Many airlines want to hide these charges from buyers so that they can distort the real ticket cost in the GDS and other distribution channels.”

• “Many consumers still use their local travel agency as a resource for making travel arrangements, therefore, it is essential they have that all the information concerning ancillary fees available to them/and the consumer at the point of sale.”

• “All fee data should be made available to travel agents through their GDSs. All airlines should be required to provide full and fair disclosure by law.”

The bottom line is that represents of a business travel organization, which might be expected to be empathetic to the airline business, is very concerned over hidden fees and surprise add-ons. We individual travelers find ourselves paying all sorts of extras on top of our "bargain" fares, but for corporate travel, these surprises add up to a big debit on a company's balance sheet. (The release should read "wreaking havoc, not "wrecking havoc," but I'm splitting grammatical hairs over a very valid point made by an international trade group -- albeit one that I don't remember ever having heard about before.) Since Congress tends to listen to business much more than to us voters, I hope that this will make an impact that will help all of us who fly. Note: The end of the release also referenced an organization called the Consumer Travel Alliance’s "just-released analysis of hidden fees." 

Clipped-Wing Concorde May Head to Dubai

Grounded supersonic plane might be permanently parked in the Gulf region right near the QE2

I don't usually indulge in speculative news, but the headline, "Concorde jet may become tourist attraction," on a news-oriented UK travel blog called Travel House UK did intrigue me. According to Travel House which in turn cited The Times, "a consortium is reportedly bidding to turn one of British Airways’ seven remaining Concorde supersonic jets into a tourist attraction, while BA said it was mulling its options." If the supersonic plane travels to Dubai, it will literally be by slow boat, its wings removed in order to fit it onto a ship, presumably to pass through the Suez Canal.

The word from "a source close to the Dubai consortium" is the group would spend millions in whatever currency to restore the interior of the plane that is currently mothballed at Heathrow Airport in London. I never flew on the Concorde, alas, but I think I sort of saw the aircraft through thick hedges when driving to or from the airport. But I'm not sure. Britain's grounded Concorde fleet is dispersed around the country and open to visitors.

Four decades ago, the supersonic Concorde, a collaborative project between Great Britain and France, was herald as the future of air travel. Beginning in 1976, British Airways and Air France few them, mainly for elite transatlantic travel. Only 20 ever came off the assembly line in Toulouse, with six used for future developments for a future that didn't happen and 14 operated commercially and, safely until July 2000, when a crash Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport that killed 113 people was the beginning of the end for all Concordes. British and French planes were all taken out of service in 2003. Crash or not, this SST would most likely not have survived the huge fuel cost run-up of 2008 and the global economic crisis that followed.

I wonder whether it will be considered a psychological blow to the Brits to have this plane parked under the palm trees on a fake island in a Persian Gulf state. At one point, there was talk of moving it from wherever it was behind the hedges to new Terminal 5 (T5), but if the Dubai plan comes to pass, the plane would be the second British transportation icon to end up on one of Dubai's artificial islands, along with the "QE2" which was moved there in order to repurpose it as floating luxury hotel there. However, according to recent reports, that project might also be in financial jeopardy and might also be opened just as a tourist attraction. Stay tuned.

Flying the WiFi Skies

Alaska Airlines testing inflight WiFi

Thanks to Harriet Baskas' post on her Stuck at the Airport blog, I now wish I were flying on Alaska Airlines soon -- or at least on the single Boeing 737-700 aircraft where inflight WiFi is being tested. I visualize myself writing blog posts, checking Email and even wandering around the Internet since security regulations no longer let passengers wander around planes. And I could do it for free during the test period, Baskas reports, in exchange for filling out a survey about the service. The airline is even sending out a daily Tweet indicating which routes the WiFi testcraft is flying -- not that it matters too much, because you're either on that plane or not.

Baskas recently wrote "Flying the WiFi Skies" for MSNBC.com on the baby steps the airline industry has taken thus for into the WiFi world aloft.

Airlines' Food Costs Are Pretty Low

Inflight food costs predictors of lousy inflight fare

No domestic airline spends as much as $9, per passenger, for inflight food, according to Cranky Flier's post today called "What Airlines Spend on Food." The post, which I recommended reading, included a government chart (below) tracking key carriers' per-passenger food expenditures over the last decade.

Of course, nine bucks, which is about what Alaska Airlines used to spend, bought more and/or better food a decade ago than six dollars or less does today. What is unclear from this chart is whether it includes both Coach and the First Class. Free food and adult beverages are still offered in the front of the plane, but in steerage, passengers have to buy food other than perhaps a tiny little bag of free pretzels or peanuts. We have been doing so for nearly a decade, since carriers curtailed than eliminated free meals and phased in food fort purchase.


"United Airlines used to spend $100 million a year on coach-cabin food when serving free meals, but now spends $20 million and brings in $20 million in revenue," according to a Wall Street Journal report last September called "Pie in the Sky? Upgrading Food in Coach." I knew that carriers were spending less and earning more on inflight food, but I had no idea how much.

Cancun Tourism in Trouble

Hard times at popular Mexican travel destination

Mexican tourism has taken well-documented hit after hit in the last couple of years (drug gang violence, weather, swine flu, global economic woes, you name it), and now, Cancun in particular has been slammed by malfeasance on the part of local officials. As Mexico City-based Jimm Budd reported under the headline "Cancun Broke":

"Cancun – officially the Benito Juárez municipality – is technically bankrupt according to the governor on Quintana Roo, the state where Cancun is located. It seems the city treasurer, Carlos Trigo, has vanished and taken the treasury with him. His boss, Gregory Sanchez, resigned a few weeks ago in order to run for governor. Since then, Sanchez has been arrested and now is in prison awaiting trial on charges he was working with narcotics smugglers.

"Nor is Cancun doing well as a travel destination. The airport reports that the number of passengers served thus far this year is still nearly ten percent below the 2008 figure. Number for last year were so dismal as not to be considered."