Heathrow’s New, Strict Terminal 5
Google’s High-Tech Patent May Ease Mass Transportation
Airports Chooses Delays, Wet Luggage to Save Money
Scrapped Aircraft Turned Home Sweet Home
HEATHROW’S NEW, STRICT TERMINAL 5 – The Times (UK)
The Queen “Mum” herself officially opened Heathrow’s new Terminal 5 yesterday, and it will implement stricter rules. Passengers will be refused to enter security checkpoints if they arrive less than 35 minutes before their departure time. Instead, they will be required to rebook their flight, meaning they may have to pay hundreds of pounds for new flights. British Airways hopes this new policy will prevent 350 passengers being late for one passenger sprinting through the airport. What’s more, BA claims it will take only 10 minutes for the average passenger to travel from the terminal entrance, past the security checkpoints and to the departure lounge. Although these implementations may decrease queue time and delays, the new regime will force passengers to wait at least 30 minutes in the departure lounge.
Link: The Times (UK)
GOOGLE’S HIGH-TECH PATENT MAY EASE MASS TRANSPORTATION - InformationWeek
The future of mass transportation may just lie behind the secretive doors of Google.
Author Stephen Arnold says the company’s patented employee bus routing system could be a model for mass transportation. “No one knows what these guys at Google are up to,” said Arnold, who has written two books on Google. “That’s why their patents are so important.” Referring to the extensive database at the U.S. Patent Office as a sort of crystal ball, Arnold attempts predict the future of Google, and discovered a patent on transportation routing. Without the company’s help, Arnold reports that the transportation routing patent already has been implemented in Google’s employee bus system in the Bay Area. Buses and employees are connected in real time by using Google’s mapping technology and GPS location finding, which are actually linked with Google employee cell phones.
Link: InformationWeek
AIRPORT CHOOSES DELAYS, WET LUGGAGE TO CUT COSTS – South Florida Sun-Sentinel
It’s bad enough if your luggage is tossed about, damaged or even delayed, but wouldn’t you appreciate it if it arrived to you … drenched? For over a year, passengers Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport have had to deal with soaked luggage or delayed flights during rainstorms, due to the new baggage-handling center for Terminal 4. To cut costs (and to enrage travelers), the “building” was constructed with a partial roof and no walls. Ignoring architects, the airport requested the open-air design to save a few bucks. The airport has added makeshift cloth awnings on two sides of the building, but it has not resolved the problem.
Link: South Florida Sun-Sentinel
SCRAPPED AIRCRAFT TURNED HOME SWEET HOME – Super Use
In 1994 Jo Ann Ussery lost her home due to huge trees covered in ice tumbling on her home, almost completely flattening it. When she began searching for a mobile home, her brother-in-law Bob Farrow, an air traffic controller at Greenwood Airport , suggested she should try locating a retired jetliner. When she visited the Memphis Group, she took a tour led by Richard Cordle, the Greenwood facility manager. Stumbling upon a scrapped Continental Airlines 727, she said, “I want it; how much?” After several months, the aircraft was released, and she only had to pay $2,000 for it, and transportation cost an additional $4,000. She restored it into her favorite dream home by spending another $24,000. To this day, Cordle calls her “that gutsy little grandma.”
Link: Super Use
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