Mike FriedmanSome weeks are more interesting than others. Best as I can tell, this was not one of the better ones (which led to my pulling a story from two weeks ago, but we don’t have to worry about that). Still, there’s a bit of eye-popping material out there, and I’ll make the best of it.
This week in travel, we’re going to see why everyone hates the TSA, almost as many people hate emotional support animals and how to make fewer people hate flying in economy.
This Week In Travel
A TSO Gets Downright Creepy
It was about a year ago that the TSA had only its second moment of glory.* In the middle of a government shutdown, 90% of employees showed up anyway, even though they weren’t getting paid. And for only the briefest of moments, America felt pity for its airport security agents. It didn’t last long.
Last week, TSO Johnathon Lomeli allegedly set a new low by tricking a female passenger into baring herself. Yeah, um, I’m not sure what to say. Except this: The TSA has gotten progressively more intrusive over the years, but we haven’t reached the point where they have the right to strip search you (yet).
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Emotional Support Animals Are Simply Hysterical
In one way, emotional support animals are a lot like crying babies on flights: People complain about them disproportionally to the amount of havoc that they actually cause, but they’re so universally feared that they get far more press than they are entitled to.
For those of you who don’t know, an emotional support animal is a type of assistance animal that alleviates a symptom or effect of a person’s disability (according to wikipedia, anyway). Increasingly, though, passengers are claiming that their pets are emotional support animals to get around paying the pet carry-on charges.
Still, that doesn’t mean that all such animals are cats and dogs. We’ve seen emotional support pigs, peacocks and Pebbles the dwarf hamster, as well as a wide variety of other animals that don’t begin with the letter “P.” I’ve gotta say, though, the rabbit in the bowtie makes it all worthwhile.
The Aircraft Interiors That You’ll Probably Never See
Well, there really is an award for everything. I’ve never heard of the Crystal Cabin Awards, but according to this self-serving press release, they’re some of the most prestigious in aircraft design.
On the downside, none of these innovations look like what airlines really want, which is a way to cram in even more seats into the same size cabins. That doesn’t mean, though, that it’s not fun to consider the idea of bunk beds or flex lounges. Have fun dreaming.
*The first came in the movie “Get Out,” which shows just how scorned this agency is: It took a fictional movie for the organization to get any positive recognition.
