August 4, 2008 11:06 PM
Three ideas we should steal
My last post about the journey to China, I promise. But the U.S. travel industry is such a mess I feel we all have a duty to point out little improvements it could make.
No. 1, over the course of the last several years, I must have been ordered to throw away several dozen bottles of perfectly good water by the Transportation Security Administration because one screwball once tried to bring a liquid explosive on board an airline. I'm convinced this has become a racket for the airport concessionaires because you have to replace your water on the concourse where, coincidentally, they sell one bottle for the same price Safeway charges for a case of 24.
Here in Beijing, if you have a bottle of water when you go through an Olympic security checkpoint, they ask you to take a drink. Problem solved.
No. 2, both Cathay Pacific Airways and Dragonair offer a revolutionary service: They serve hot meals. In economy. For free. And they're not terrible. Dragonair's dim sum is positively edible. Cathay even offers beer and wine as part of the deal. For free. Not that I'm recommending imbibing; just saying.
Meanwhile, U.S. airlines consider charging for that little bag of pretzels, hoping it will keep them out of bankruptcy.
No. 3, when Denver Post photographer Helen Richardson, Rocky writer Clay Latimer and I arrived in Hong Kong, we went to the gate for our connection to Beijing and nobody was there. I mean nobody. Not only that, there were no chairs. Pretty Spartan, we thought.
We hung out for a while, but as flight time approached, we got a little nervous. We were still alone. What with the Olympics and all, we figured there might be more than the three of us trying to get to Beijing. So we finally asked somebody.
Turns out, the same gate has separate levels for departing and arriving passengers. That way, the arriving don't have to navigate through the departing and the departing don't have to keep getting out of the way. True, they'd have to retrofit every existing U.S. airport and there's absolutely no chance of the broke airlines approving, but it's a pretty good idea if cattle prods are not part of your customer relations program.
The three of us got upstairs to the departure level just in time. Out of habit, we threw away our Starbucks before going through the security checkpoint between the two levels. See No. 1.
July 15, 2010
8:01 AM
FLORRIE writes:
Thats a great write up & I go along with you on post, but endeavoring to appeal to all people and retaining the complete agenda flowing is mostly a difficult job, but one you are quite able to do.