FAA Let Southwest Sweep Past Safety Checks / Southwest Grounds Some Planes
The Death of Wi-Fi?
Bored Travelers Venture Off Path, Into Slums
Everyblock Offers Hard-to-Find News
Biofuel Makers Get Creative In Quest for Jet Fuel Alternatives
FAA LET SOUTHWEST SWEEP PAST SAFETY CHECKS – USA Today
The Federal Aviation Administration officials who oversaw Southwest Airlines ignored safety violations, sensitive data to the carrier and tried to intimidate two inspectors to head off investigations. The inspectors are scheduled to testify before the House Transportation Committee on April 3. Other officials in the agency are reported to have allowed Southwest to skip safety inspections—for years. The FAA fined Southwest for $10.2 million due to it flying 46 jets that were not inspected for cracks in the fuselage. FAA inspector and whistle-blower C. Bobby Boutris wrote in a memo to Congress last fall that the agency streamlined oversight at Southwest only after congressional investigators began inquiring about the situation. In a memo, he wrote, “After eight months, they (Southwest) are finally doing what they were required to do back in March, and this is not by choice. It is very sad that somebody from outside had to force them to do the right thing.”
Link: USA Today
Related: Bloomberg - Southwest Grounds 44 Planes for Inspections
THE DEATH OF WI-FI?– InformationWeek
Most business travelers exhale a sigh of relief when they, as last, locate a Wi-Fi hotspot. According to Johan Bergendahl, Ericsson’s chief marketing officer, however, Wi-Fi already is irrelevant and soon will be superseded by high-speed mobile broadband. At the European Computer Audit, Control and Security Conference in Stockholm , he said, “In Austria they are saying that mobile broadband will pass fixed broadband this year. It’s already growing faster, and in Sweden , the most popular phone is a USB modem. Hotspots at places like Starbucks are becoming the telephone boxes of the broadband era. In a few years, it [High-Speed Downlink Packet Access] will be as common as Wi-Fi is today.” Increasingly, laptops are being embedded with 3G modules, which works with mobile broadband networks.
Link: InformationWeek
Related Link: Hotel Lobbies: Free Wi-fi for Your Business Meetings
BORED TRAVELERS VENTURE OFF PATH AND VISIT SLUMS – The New York Times
Have you visited a country more than once and are bored with its monuments? Then, perhaps you should take “slum tour.” Be it tourism or voyeurism, Michael Cronin had had traveled to India numerous times, so he decided to see the other side of the country. “It just resonated with me immediately,” said Cronin, who noted that a bottle of Champagne at the luxe Taj Hotel in Mumbai that he was staying at cost the equivalent of two years’ salary for many Indians. Cronin soon stepped off the beaten path and toured the Dharavi slum, where he ventured into open sewers and ducked to avoid exposed electrical wires. This slum is home to more than a million. Slum tourism, or “poorism,” is becoming more and more popular.
Link: The New York Times
Related Link: The Good, the Green and the Downright Crazy Tours
EVERYBLOCK OFFERS HARD-TO-FIND NEWS - CNET
EveryBlock lets users key in their ZIP codes or street addresses and informs them about what is going on in that immediate area. It will provide information, like local crimes, which business is filing for a liquor license, if a movie is being filmed, and more. EveryBlock even links with Craigslist’s lost-and-found postings. It offers an insider’s look into a block, and as Adrian Holovaty, the site’s founder, said, “The kind of information we provide is only news if you live near it.” Holovaty, 27, funded his project with a $1.1 million grant from the Knight Foundation. The site offers hard-to-find information from public records or data that didn’t exist on the Web until EveryBlock publishes it. This site currently offers city information on Chicago but will soon expand to include other cities.
Link: CNET News
BIOFUEL MAKERS GET CREATIVE IN THE QUEST FOR FUEL ALTERNATIVES – Dallas Morning News
John Heimlich, chief economist of the Air Transportation Association of America, suggests that the air travel industry would be an appropriate fit for alternative fuel options made from vegetable oils, coal, bio-matter, and garbage. Heimlich says confidently, “We want it. And unlike car drivers, we’ll use it.” With rampant fuel inflation since 2003—jet fuel prices have launched from $15 billion to $41.2 billion in 2007—The U.S. Air Force is already ensuring that by 2011 its planes will be able to burn on a more sustainable, 50-50 cocktail of regular jet-fuel and one of a few alternative, synthetic fuels. Just last month Virgin Atlantic loaded a Boeing 747 with a more tropical alternative made of coconuts, Brazilian babassu nuts and good old jet fuel, and the plane flew unhindered from London to Brussels. While biodiesel efforts are inspiring many in the aviation industry, the sheer acreage needed to supply the Earth’s jets with enough of an alternative, is vast, to say the least. Heimlich adds appropriately, “Where’s all the land for sorghum and coconuts going to come from? We have 31,000 flights a day in the United States. That’s a lot of coconuts.”
Link: Dallas Morning News
Want to see other recent Travel News Roundups? Click here.
Or, check out more travel news you can use in our main Travel News section.
Read the latest in News Analysis: The Great International Credit Card Settlement.
