{"id":5625,"date":"2004-02-09T08:21:14","date_gmt":"2004-02-09T15:21:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2004\/02\/09\/travel-notes-2.html"},"modified":"2004-02-09T08:21:14","modified_gmt":"2004-02-09T15:21:14","slug":"travel_notes_2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/02\/09\/travel_notes_2.html","title":{"rendered":"Travel Notes"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the journey home from Sacramento last week …<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. United’s check-in kiosks rock, especially since they are now combining them with baggage service. Only drawback — you need customer service intervention to choose an exit row (so that they can make sure you can physically do the exit row thing). Feh. Aside from that, very quick check-in.\n
  2. Because of security concerns (Evil Terrorists Clustering by the Pilot’s Cabin and Doing Dastardly Deeds), airlines have been trying to restrict folks queueing up for the head by the front of the plane. United has a new twist on this — due to “security requirements” (i.e., “don’t blame us!”), people are restricted to the lavs in their own cabin.\n

    Now, granted, that’s also something the airlines have tried to come up with a polite way of enforcing. After all, can’t have the poor schmucks from steerage keeping our Elite Premium Platinum First Class types from sauntering into the First Class head whenever they want. But now the airlines can blame it all on “security requirements” (presumably Evil Terrorists would fly coach).<\/p>\n

  3. For reasons that escape me except to try and encourage me to fly more, my United frequent flier classification got upgraded to “Premier” for some months. Woo-hoo. Not that I actually travelled in that period on United until this trip.\n

    And what did it mean on this trip? Basically that I could board first with the Gold, Platinum, Premier, Executive Premier, Primo Premier, Premier Latinum, Ultra Elite, 100,000, 1,000,000, 1 Light Year, and Super Duper fliers.<\/p>\n

    (United has gotten a little embarrassed, it seems, by the long litany of Preferred Folk who get to board first, so now they stamp a big “Boarding 1” thing on your boarding pass, and just call that.)<\/p>\n

    So I got to board first, which was kind of nice, but not enough to make it worth doing anything crazy.<\/p>\n

    I didn’t quite have the nerve (or enough time to make it worthwhile) to see if it would get me into the Admiralty Red Carpet Posh & Comfy Lounge at DIA. <\/p>\n

  4. Another new refinement. Electronics stuff in the cabin, including cell phones, could now be turned on once we left the “active runway,” not once the cabin door was opened. Doubtless a reflection of the fact that everyone did it anyway.<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    On the journey home from Sacramento last week … United’s check-in kiosks rock, especially since they are now combining them with baggage service. Only drawback — you need customer service…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travel"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":133123,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/03\/22\/automated-airport-passenger-baggage-screening.html","url_meta":{"origin":5625,"position":0},"title":"Automated airport passenger baggage screening","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 22-Mar-17 10:08am","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, more automated, but there are indeed some cool things here in terms of larger bins, faster people being able to get through faster, etc. It also avoids the security awkwardness of temporarily shutting down the line so that the TSA agents can wheel bins back from the end to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":132656,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/01\/26\/seatback-screens-may-be-come-a-thing-of-the-past.html","url_meta":{"origin":5625,"position":1},"title":"Seatback screens may be come a thing of the past","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 26-Jan-17 9:48am","format":false,"excerpt":"One knows one is getting old when one has seen whole waves of tech come and go. Big cabin movie screens, monitors in the aisle space, flip down screen, seat-back screens, and, now ...'The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports that new American Airlines planes expected to go into service this year\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":133393,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/05\/03\/flying-the-more-crowded-skies.html","url_meta":{"origin":5625,"position":2},"title":"Flying the More Crowded Skies","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 3-May-17 11:24am","format":false,"excerpt":"Not in terms of airplanes. In terms of bodies crammed into the airplanes. Ugh. American Airlines Plans to Squeeze You In Even Tighterhttps:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2017-05-03\/american-cuts-legroom-in-coach-cabin-of-new-boeing-737-jetliner American Airlines Plans to Squeeze You In Even Tighter American Airlines Group Inc. is about to give coach passengers even less legroom. 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