Travel Gear: The Best and Worst of the Year

Travel writers' evaluations of 2009's winners and losers

Practical Travel Gear published a short list of the best and worst travel items for 2009. There were, of course, good suggestions for tote bags, clothing and miscellaneous accessories, and some on the "worst" list that made me laugh out loud. Contributor John Gordon wrote, "Some things I just don’t understand, like Planesheets for covering airline seats. Besides the dubious claims of cleanliness, I’d just feel a little weird being the only passenger on the plane sitting in a zebra-stripe seat." I've got to agree on that one, though in this age of swine-flu fear, I suppose there are travelers who feel more protected by temporarily slip-covering their airplane seat in washable or disposable covers -- butt-ugly as some of them are.

No one asked me, but I'd include among the best those TSA-approved luggage locks. They're not new, but neither is Ex-Officio travelwear that the site praised. I've always wondered about unlocked bags both as invitations to pilferage and as ways that someone behind the scenes at an airport can make anb innocent traveler an unwitting mule for smuggling contraband. I'd include noise-canceling headphones, not new either but invaluable on a small, noisy airplane or a long flight on any plane at all. And finally, I'd include those not-new-either inflatable neck pillows, which are great now that airlines have become chintzy with little pillows. I like to sleep on planes and appreciate the comfort.

Great Snow Conditions Launch 2010

Happy New Year -- and happy powder season across the snowbelt.

My friend Maja has been in St. Moritz, Switzerland, over the holidays. On Wednesday she wrote, "winter wonderland! ..snowing snowing snowing...." On Thursday she wrote, "December 31st, St. Moritz..and it's snowing like crazy! I wish all my friends a great New Years Eve bash!!!!!! To a fab 2010!" And yesterday, on New Year's Day, she wrote, "Happy New Year!!!!!! What a spectacular start! Love 1.1.2010! Fab Skiing! tons of powder, blue skies, GREAT fireworks ... evening another snow storm.... true winter wonderland.....I am feeling like a winter princess..... a great 2010 has begun! Happy New Year, cheers cheers cheers!" Thanks, Maja. I just wish St. Moritz had a current snow conditions picture on its website or that the site had a more straightforward to obtain to copy here and share with everyone.

My pal Nancy wrote from Maine, "Gotta Love This Snowstorm! It's great for the ski industry!" Hey Nancy, it's great for all of us who like to slide on snow. The photo at the right was taken at Sugarloaf, Maine, a happy fresh-snow scene repeated across New England. Vermont ski areas reported 3 to 9 inches of new snow, which in the Northeast is a major dump. Most Vermont areas were in the 2- to 5-inch category, but Mount Snow, in the southern part of the state reported 9 inches! If true, Mount Snow must had its own micro-weather system, because New Hampshire ski areas also welcomed 3 to 5 inches of new snow, and Jiminy Peak in northwestern Massachusetts reported just 1 inch.

But what of the Rockies? I went to Snowmass between Christmas and New Year, skiing on beautifully groomed snow on three cold, clear, wind-free days. It started snowing on the evening after day three, just as I was leaving. My son, Andrew, teaches skiing at Purgatory near Durango in southwestern Colorado. He tole me that they got about a foot in the days leading up to New Year, that conditions have been great there too, and that he, his ski school colleagues and their clients are eagerly awaiting their next powder day.

The biggest snows (and the best January deal) might just be at Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The resort clocked in 19 inches of snow since Wednesday morning and is expecting  huge storm that is forecast to hit the Tetons over the weekend, bringing another one to two feet of new snow. And the resort has an amazing January deal. The ‘Buy 2 Get 2’ airline offer from any departure city in the country, amounts to half-price fares on any airline for a group or family or four or more. Book before January 15 and travel by January 31. Combine that with lift/lodging packages starting at $81 per person, per night, and it's hardly worth staying home.

On the other side of the soaring Tetons from Jackson Hole, Grand Targhee has snared three feet of snow in the last three days. Th images are awesome, but I'm not skilled enough to download one and post it, so click here and be dazzled.

And if you don't ski, snowboard, cross-country ski, skate-ski (a dynamite exercise) or snowshoe, January is the time to do it. Learn a Snowsport Month features dynamite deals that generally include very affordable instruction, equipment and lift tickets or trail passes. Each participating ski resort or cross-country center sets its own program.

13 Airlines Shut Down in 2009

Small and little-known airlines around the world grounded forever

Thirteen airlines that were flying a year ago are no longer in the air. From Air Comet (Spain) to Zambian Airways (Zambia, naturally), the Cranky Flyer found a baker's dozen carriers that folded in 2009 for a number of reasons. None of these have the global importance of, say, Pan Am, but each had a niche. Some were operationally unsound and were shut done by their respective national aviation authorities. Others succumbed to mismanagement and financial failures. Cranky wrote about the often-checkered history of each and what finally did it in. A tombstone graphic accompanied each writeup. Although I never heard of most of these doomed carriers, the stories made for interesting reading -- a must for anyone who vacuums up airline trivia.

Fallout from Failed/Foiled 12/25 Airliner Attack

Privacy versus security in the air seem to be tilting toward full-body scan technology

More full-body scanners that "see" through clothing. Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport, from which the would-be bomber departed for Detroit, reportedly immediately is beginning to use 15 L-3 Communications' booth-like ProVision scanners (right) that it previously purchased. These scanners are supposed to detect explosives and other non-metallic objects that a metal detector would miss. ProVision uses "active millimeter wave imaging technology" to penetrate clothing and packaging to reveal and pinpoint hidden weapons, explosives, drugs and other contraband. It has the potential over screening more than 400 people per hour.

Changes in attitude. Just last year, the European Parliament voted against using such anatomically explicit devices on privacy issues, but Europeans now seem to be leaning toward their use. Peter van Dalen, vice chairman of the Parliament's transport committee, said that newer technology does not appear to violate travelers' privacy and  urged the installation of the equipment across the 27-nation European Union.

Improved software technology. New devices rather than human screeners looking at the images as as passengers pass through the machines to detect suspicious objects while allaying invasion-of-privacy concerns. Interestingly, it was the left-leaning American Civil Liberties Union that initially objected to the scanners' "virtual strip search," but it is now a Republican Representative, Jason Chaffetz of Utah, who sponsored a successful measure prohibiting whole-body imaging for the primary screening. The bill now goes to the Senate, so as Europeans are poised to increase the use of these scanners, the US might not be following  -- even though aircraft from or bound for the US are thought to be at greater risk. Meanwhile, the ACLU's position advocates "effective security that respects privacy.

Boom times for Rapiscan. The Transportation Security Agency has purchased 150 of its scanners in addition to the 40 now in use at 19 US airports. The company's WaveScan 200 "is composed of a real-time Radiometric Scanner that images electromagnetic millimeter wave energy, an integrated full-motion video camera, on-board computer, and sophisticated, intelligent video detection engine." according to the company's website.Current TSA rules require that images are not visible in a public location, that TSA officers "assisting" passengers is unable to view images and officers who evaluate the images never see the passengers. Passengers may opt for a pat-down rather than a body scan. It depends on which option individuals consider less invasive. At most airports, the scanning machines are for secondary screenings after passengers have cleared pass through a metal detector, they are being used in place of of metal detectors at Albuquerque, Las Vegas; Miami; San Francisco; Salt Lake City; and Tulsa.

Super-sensitive "sniffers" coming. SpectraFluidics has developed sensors can detect minuscule traces of explosives by detecting molecules from a passenger or from luggage. In a test, Spectrafluidics' devices were able to detect PETN, RDX, TNT and ammonium nitrate. PETN has been confirmed as the explosive material involved in the attempted bombing of the Detroit-bound flight on Christmas Day. the explosive This is a faster, more efficient alternative to the current swabbing. SpectraFluidics plans to release the system in 2010. It can be a handheld device or a portal like the current metal detectors. The company says that it will be able to retrofit Existing scanning and screening systems. ill balso plans units for retrofitting existing airport scanners and other screening hardware already installed in the market. The goal is real-time detection of trace amounts of explosives in either vapor or solid phase, with minimal user interaction.

Timing is Everything. The people behind Verified  Identity Pass Inc's Clear program, a pre-clearing process that charged customers for a faster approach to TSA security checkpoints, probably regret the timo,g of their enterprise. Clear was launched with great fanfare in 2005 and closed abruptly in June 2009, as I wrote about here. I'm guessing that the principals behind Clear wish that they could have held out until the end of the year, when increased security and longer delays would have provided a new market for their service.

Department of Homeland Security Subpoenas Travel Bloggers

First Ammendment rights versus security concerns

Chris Elliott of elliott.org and Steven Frischling of FlyingWithFish.com got hold of and published Transportation Security directives following the failed terrorist incident on a Detroit-bound plane. You know the story. I don't need to recap it here. The Department of Homeland Security wants to know how these two bloggers obtained these confidential documents and have subpoenaed them to find out. No one is diminishing the need for vigilence and security when it comes to air travel, but IMO, Homeland Security is barking up the wrong tree when their concern is with who leaked these documents rather than paying full attention to plugging the holes in the security system.

In the old world of traditional news, reporters, their editor bosses and their publisher bosses stood firm to protect their First Ammendment rights (that's the Freedom of the Press one). Think Watergate. Now independent bloggers in many cases have become watchdogs since the mainstream media is crumbling and/or becoming a vehicle for info-tainment and so-called "reality TV." For journalists, it doesn't get more real than the need to protect sources and maintain freedom to publish -- no less online than in print or broadcast. They don't have powerful corporations and squadrons of lawyers behind them. They should have all of us behind them. When they break news like this that affects us, they are on our side as travelers (and as travel journalists). Let's be on their side.

Read Chris Elliott's report of the subpoena here, Steve Frischling's here and travel writer/blogger (and until recently USA Today travel reporter) Chris Gray Faust's commentary here.

Sleep in a Grounded 747 in Stockholm

Jumbo jet conversion to airport accommodation

Last January, I learned of a project to convert a 747 into an airport hostel at Stockholm's Arlanda Airport and wrote a post about it. I just read a piece on a neat blog called Airport Hotels, not surprisingly about airport hotels but also related subjects, that it has been completed and is operating. Look at the image on the right and click back to the ratty aircraft the developer started with.

Airport Hotels blogger Susan R. has a fascinating post not just about the Jumbo Hostel* at Arlanda but also other interesting aircraft, grounded and otherwise. She found a 727 that has been turned into a treehouse-height executive suite in Costa Rica and a plane once used by East Germany's iron-fisted Erich Honecker and now a luxury suite at Holland's Teuge Airport. Susan R. also found some futuristic flying machines and has images of all the once and future airborne wonders on her post.

*The URLs to Jumbo Hostel's English and Swedish websites (www.jumbohostel.com and www.jumbohostel.com) are not functioning right now, but you can also read about it in a profile on the Hostel.com website and see photos in article in De Zeen, a design magazine.  

The Cow Is Gone.TSA Closes the Barn Door.

Thwarted terrorist attempt "inspires" new TSA regulations that border on the ridiculous

Scroll to the bottom of this post for update.
According to conventional wisdom, generals are always fighting the last war. A corollary might be that security officias are always responding to the last terrorist incident. After Robert Reid was arrested for trying to ignite explosives in his shoes, every airline passenger was required to remove his/her shoes, send them through the X-ray machine and shuffle through the metal detector. Now, following a thwarted terrorist attempt on a plane bound for Detroit, new security measures have been instituted -- perhaps at least partly as a tactic to divert public attention from the fact that the the government ignored alerts by the father of Abdul Mudallad, the 23-year-old Nigerian who tried to blow up the plane using leg bomb and a syringe, had warned. New regulations that we can all find logical reasons to debate:

•  US-bound passengers are being physically patted down during the boarding process in addition to passing through metal detectors, removing their shoes, discarding water and beverages and being restricted to 3-ounce or smaller containers of liquids in carry-ons.
•  US-bound passengers will be permitted only one carry-on and will not have access to it, either throughout the flight or during the last hour.
•  Passengers on international flights to the United States must remain in their seats for the last hour of a flight without any latptops or other personal items, blankets or pillows on their laps. (Anyone who has to use the lavatory must be escorted by a crew member.)
•  Airliner entertainment systems will no longer display real-time route maps that would indicate when the plane enters US airspace or where it is.

 The new regs remind me of parochial school (hands on your desks) or old college dorm rules when boys were permitted to visit girls' dorms (door open, all four feet on the floor). The net result of all this security zeal, in addition casing delays and ticking off passengers, is that people will be increasingly reluctant to fly. Business travelers unable to use their laptops? Parents who will not be able to hold a sleeping baby wrapped in a blanket? Cold-sensitive travelers or underdressed vacationers returning from tropical resorts who could become chilled in refrigerated aircraft cabins? There unlikely to be eager to fly again in the near future. I know I'm not, and I'm scheduled for two (domestic) trips in January.

Beyond personal inconvenience will be theimpact on the airline industry, already heard-hit by unpredictable fuel prices, the global recession and weathter-related delays.

Dec. 28 update: According to an Associated Press report called "Passengers again free to move about the cabin"on MSNBC.com, the TSA has relaxed some of the strict rules in the wake of the failed bomb attempt and given captains discretion about instituting some of them. "it was now up to captains on each flight to decide whether passengers can have blankets and other items on their laps or can move around during the final phase of flight," the report said. "Confused? So were scores of passengers who flew Monday on one of the busiest travel days of the year. On some flights, passengers were told to keep their hands visible and not to listen to iPods. Even babies were frisked. But on other planes, security appeared no tighter than usual.The Transportation Security Administration did little to explain the rules. And that inconsistency might well have been deliberate: What's confusing to passengers is also confusing to potential terrorists."