America vs. Europe: who overrates whom?

Not an aviation-related note, but given that many of my readers are also plugged into the travel industry, here’s an interesting diablogue between Bryan Caplan and Tyler Cowen.
Bryan:
When Americans visit Europe, they see a lot to like: Charming boulevards, delicious food, and historic cities that feel safe.  When Europeans visit the U.S., it’s not so [...]

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Nothing to see here

Echoing Terry Maxon and Cranky, let me just say that the attempt by members of Congress to limit carry-on bag sizes by statute is a classic example of congressional kibitzing in the private business affairs of private-sector businesses. This is also, however, a bill that will go nowhere. Like many other minor pieces of legislation, [...]

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Let your left hand not know what your right hand is doing….

The Senate is set to vote on a bill that would “establish a nonprofit corporation to run a nationally coordinated travel promotion program.”
[Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid said the corporation “would market the U.S. around the globe as a tourist destination.” Reid told reporters earlier in the week that the bill could create 40,000 new [...]

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Okay, this is fascinating: more on airlines and the flu

Matt Phillips digs up a 2006 PLoS Medicine article by John S. Brownstein, Cecily J. Wolfe, and Kenneth D. Mandl that found a correlation between the grounding of commercial aircraft in the days after 9/11 and the later peak of the 2001-2002 flu season, which peaked at the normal time in countries that did not [...]

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Good riddance to Dutch travel tax

The Dutch travel tax has been so successful, it has to be scrapped:
The Dutch Government is to scrap from July 1 its air passenger ticket tax, first dubbed the ‘eco’ tax when it was introduced against major opposition by aviation and local industry last year. The controversial departure tax, which ranges from 11 to 45 [...]

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New aviation resources

In addition to his podcast series, my friend Addison Schonland has recently unveiled a couple of nifty and useful resources for those who follow the airline industry. One is AirportButler.com, which offers reports that offer targeted results from DOT consumer air travel data. Even better is AirInsight.com, which makes the useful information logged in the [...]

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Sunday stumper: optimizing your run from one end of the terminal to the other

Here’s a air-travel problem for the mathematically inclined:
Suppose you are trying to get from one end A of a terminal to the other end B.  (For simplicity, assume the terminal is a one-dimensional line segment.)  Some portions of the terminal have moving walkways (in both directions); other portions do not.  Your walking speed is a [...]

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Britain keeps, raises Air Passenger Duty

Britain is keeping in place — and raising — its Air Passenger Duty, a per-passenger charge levied on airline itineraries originating in Britain. The government had promised to design a new charge based on aircraft; the current charge does not correlate actual emissions to charges for them. Two aircraft of identical capacity but with different [...]

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Obesity rule upheld in Canada

I don’t know why the blogosphere has erupted over this just now (I saw several posts on the subject in my non-aviation-related categories on Google Reader), but I’ll mention it: the Canadian Transport Agency’s January ruling on obese travelers was challenged by Air Canada and WestJet, upheld by a lower court, and appealed to Canada’s [...]

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Bankruptcy, not bailouts

I bet you’re thinking, how would a bailout of the “big three” U.S.-based automakers — General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler — affect a bailout of the airline industry? Tellingly, a few observers have compared the situation with the car-makers (Scene: Washington. Detroit: Give us big money money; our bankruptcy is your DOOM. Congress: Sure, always [...]

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