FLYING JETSTAR

The bad news: The seats are like sitting on a toilet for 5 hours.

The good news: Jetstar got me home to Perth when Qantas was grounded.

Coffee, Tea or Me ?

Plane truth behind trolley-dolly brand

Laura Powell

October 31, 2011

 

Retro US drama Pan Am shows what life was like for a flight attendant in 1963.

A WOULD-BE flight attendant who had applied to Garuda Indonesia recently told a local newspaper that she and her fellow candidates had been subjected to a ''health examination'' by a male doctor that involved having their breasts ''fondled''. According to a Garuda official, the ''hand examination on breast'' was necessary to detect implants, which ''can have health issues when air pressure falls during flights''.
While not a practice common to other airlines, the incident is by no means unique in an industry that has long relied on female beauty and, in some cases, availability, to keep itself airborne.
Now the impending arrival of US drama Pan Am, the latest retro offering to follow in the wake of Mad Men (landing first in Britain, then next year in Australia), might raise questions about how much - or little - conditions have changed in the past 50 years for flight attendants, particularly those with breasts.

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In Britain, where the series is to be screened by the BBC next month, the channel is promising to fly viewers ''back to 1963 and the dawn of a glamorous new era of luxury air travel''. Glamorous - and incredibly sexist.
It is not hard to find evidence of what life was like for female flight attendants at the time. Two, Trudy Baker and Rachel Jones, even co-wrote a memoir at the close of the decade - charmingly entitled Coffee, Tea or Me? - in which Baker recalled being sexually molested by a passenger during an emergency landing. After complaining to her supervisor she was told: ''You know, Trudy, we can't have an unhappy, unsmiling stewardess serving our valued travellers, can we?''
This response might seem as archaic as the uniforms, but scrape the surface and the trolley-dolly caricature is still prevalent, thanks in no small part to the aggressively sexualised marketing and recruitment methods used by a broad range of airlines.
In July this year, Thai airline Nok Air posted a recruitment advert for ''beautiful girls with nice personalities'' to fill its cabin crew positions; those over 25 were deemed too old. Last month, a report in The Times of India accused Air India of following a similar recruitment policy. And new airline Thai Smile (operated by Thai Airways) is recruiting a 100-strong cabin crew of women under 24, ready for its launch in 2012.
''The reason for this is simply competition,'' explains Bev Skeggs, professor of sociology at Goldsmiths in London and author of Formations of Class and Gender. ''Airlines want to appear more high-end than their competitors to add value to their service,'' she says. ''To do this, they market their product as luxurious and desirable,'' with youth and beauty effectively transmitting that message.
Witness the Air New Zealand TV advertising campaign of 2009 in which cabin crew were photographed wearing nothing but body paint; or the Southwest Airlines planes emblazoned with murals of bikini-clad supermodel Bar Rafaeli. Virgin Atlantic has famously run £6 million ($9.09 million) advertising campaigns featuring its ''red hotties'' and there is a yearly ''Girls of Ryanair'' pin-up calendar.
Indeed, when the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF), which represents 600,000 aviation industry workers, complained to Ryanair three years ago about the calendar, the airline's chief executive, Michael O'Leary, promised: ''We note ITF's objection to the calendar. Rest assured this has encouraged us to produce an even bigger and better charity calendar for next year.''
Aesthetic labour - when employees' feelings and appearance are turned into commodities - isn't a new phenomenon, and is familiar in retail too. For flight attendants, though, who need to provide emotional support - making travellers feel safe and looked after - there is a ''combination of sexuality and emotionality [that] takes place in a contained and often stressful environment'', says Skegg. ''That combination is explosive.''
Indeed, according to Gabriel Mocho Rodriguez, civil aviation secretary at the ITF in London, the most commonly reported complaints made by cabin crew ''relate to physical contact and inappropriate approaches''.
While a handful of complaints receive wider coverage - such as the allegations that Dominique Strauss-Kahn sexually harassed Air France attendants, or that 25-year-old passenger Katherine Goldberg last month grabbed a male crew member's genitalia and demanded sex during a Virgin Atlantic flight to Heathrow - the majority are made anonymously, and often do not name the airline. ''They are afraid of losing their jobs, which are often payable hourly and on short-term contracts,'' explains Rodriguez.
The ITF has a campaign called Tales of Harassment, which logs all such complaints. They do not make comfortable reading. In one, ''A passenger pinched the flight attendant's bottom when she was passing his seat, touched her breasts while she was serving his meal and, later, stood up behind her, grasped her hips and simulated sexual intercourse.'' In another: ''A male passenger touched my behind. I told him, 'You do that again and I'll slap you.' I asked other passengers to witness the behaviour … you get afraid that you might lose your job.''
For those in the industry, fearful of their job security and entrenched in these sorts of behaviour, it is only on finding a new career that the scale of the harassment becomes clear. Ruth Walford was a flight attendant for Thomson Airways in 2007 and now works as a speech therapist. ''One time I was giving a pilot a lift home and he made it clear he expected us to sleep together.'' She is adamant that this is commonplace. ''Back then, I thought little of it, but if someone treated me like that in my job as a speech therapist, I'd be deeply offended.''
The pressure on appearance continues long after the recruitment process, too. ''Putting on weight is a huge deal,'' Walford says. ''When my friend from another airline went from a size 10 to 12 and requested a new uniform, someone from the administration office left a Slimming World leaflet in her pigeonhole.''
Additionally, most airlines stipulate minimum make-up requirements. Walford says that Thomson demands female crew wear lipstick, blusher and mascara. For Aviation Australia, the minimum requirement is foundation, eye-shadow, mascara, blusher and lipstick. Its handbook even stipulates specific rules for women: ''Have a trim every four to five weeks … Use a good quality shampoo … Use eye-shadow to emphasise your eyes.'' Even specific footwear is prescribed.
''Thomson Airways made us wear flat shoes on the flight but at the end of duty, we had to put on specially issued shoes with heels to walk out of the airport,'' says Walford. Proof indeed that not enough has changed since 1963: in the publicity shots for Pan Am, Christina Ricci and her co-stars, including Australia's Margot Robbie, are all wearing similar standard-issue heeled court shoes.
- GUARDIAN

Babies and Monsters in Business Class

Don't mix business and babies

David Flynn

November 7, 2011 - 10:08AM

Shattering the peace: is there a place for babies in business class?

You're settling into your business class seat for that long flight overseas to Asia, the US or Europe.
The laptop is charged up. There's a good book in your bag or downloaded onto your Kindle, and this month's in-flight movies include a few recent releases you never got to see on the big screen.
It's going to be a good flight.

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Then you hear it: a sound that all business travellers dread. The long, loud squeal that signals 'baby on board'.
Suddenly it's not going to be such a good flight after all.
Let's face it: babies and business class simply don't mix. You pay to be in the pointy end of the plane because you want to get some work done, or get some sleep so you can arrive at your destination rested and ready for a busy day. Probably both. And a screaming baby is not conducive to this.
It's not that I dislike babies. (Ok, I do dislike them, but that's beside the point.) It's just an indisputable fact that any business traveller is more likely to enjoy their flight if there's no baby within earshot. Not all babies cry of course, but the odds are in favour of it.
How can you beat those odds? The safest bet is to fly first class with Malaysia Airlines. MAS controversially removed bassinets from the first class cabin of its Boeing 747s when a revamp of the first class seats left insufficient room for the conventional bulkhead-mounted baby baskets.
But on Twitter, Malaysia Airlines CEO Tengku Azmil cited a different reason for the 'baby ban'.
MAS, he said, had received many complaints from passengers who “spend money on 1st class and can't sleep due to crying infants”.
Azmil followed that with the admission that it was possible for MAS to fit bassinets to the pointy end of its 747-400s “but many people complain about (crying infants).”
Further, Azmil says MAS won't fit bassinets to the airline's new flagship Airbus A380s when they take to the skies next year, telling this writer that “we are planning to stick to our (no baby) policy for now”.
This puts MAS at odds with most airlines. Qantas offers specially-designed bassinets in the first class cabin of its A380s, although these must be booked in advance. British Airways and Etihad also allow infants to travel in first class.
Apart from booking a first class ticket with MAS, what are some other strategies?
Forget about reaching for your trusty noise-cancelling headphones. They're designed to drown out the thuddering low drone of mighty jet engines, not the high-pitched banshee wail of a six-month-old infant. Instead, use a pair of earplugs to block out as much sound as you can.
Most importantly, be smart when it comes to choosing your seat.
Avoid the back of business class, which usually abuts the bulkhead where economy begins and where the first row of bassinets are located.
If you're stuck in economy, use SeatGuru to check the seat map for your upcoming flight and where the bassinets are found – then book a seat that's well clear of those danger zones.
David Flynn is a business travel expert and editor of Australian Business Traveller.

My contributionS

Create a "Crying room" like we have in church. 2 - 4 seats where harassed parents can take their voluble brood so they don'y disrupt the rest of the cabin.

Manacle all ill-behaved children (and their parents) to somewhere near the Economy Class toilets.

 

Second hand Book Buying in St. Leonard's-on-Sea

Locals not pleased... 3 pallets of the most interesting stuff in the shop on the boat to Oz on 22nd June. Arriving in August.

It’s a long story about how I found this time-warp bookshop in St Leonard’s-on-Sea, owned by Clive Linklater.
Clive is a ‘bookman’ of the old school with many years experience in the rough and tumble of the second hand book trade in England and one of its increasingly scarce survivors in an industry battered by charity shops.
Charming, erudite and laid back, he runs a tiny bookshop packed to the rafters with traditional second hand books. Not much antiquarian, no remainders… just hundreds and hundreds of used books brought to him by ‘runners’ in the trade and the results of weekend visits to boot sales.
About 15 years ago (maybe longer), I was having a drink in ‘The Mermaid’ in nearby Rye and met a somewhat inebriated minor branch of the local gentry. He offered to show me around the local bookshops the next morning.
The next morning his penchant for single malt the night before prevented him from showing up for our appointment, so I set off on my own.
I found ‘The Bookjungle’ in North Street, St. Leonard’s (since demised, if that is a word) and some three years later – in the slow process of developing a network in the book industry – I was introduced to ‘Bookman’s Halt’.
Since then, Clive has gradually introduced me to booksellers in south east england ranging west to Brighton and north to Tunbridge Wells.
It is now an important part of our sourcing of books, but perhaps not quite as important as an excuse for some excellent pub lunches…

Hay-on-Wye: Once upon a time it was The Town of Books

Hay Festival, Hay-on-Wye. Once upon a time the Town of Books. 
The Hay Festival is popular and the town is still an attractive tourist destination, but these days very little to do with antiquarian and second hand books. The annual Hay Festival is bigger than Ben Hur (in 2010 partially sponsored by Oxfam, who kill second hand bookshops in UK every day!), but the bookshops have mostly disappeared....
Richard Booth's castle, once a major focus of antiquarian book dealing in the UK is up for sale and the locals are up in arms...

Mikey and Jane Bullock's Hay-on-Wye Booksellers has long been one of the most successful bookshops in Hay. Usually ebullient and positive about book selling, Mikey is now contemplating withdrawing from "bricks and mortar" retail and concentrating on his incredibly successful website. (Having fabulous Phaidon Press 'Hurts' helps!)

And I bought quite a few...

I never understood Eccles Cakes until I had some in Hay on this trip. 
I always thought them dry, hard and unappetising...
Until I discovered these in Hay.
I only ate four at once. Maybe it was five.
Yum!

Was it Oscar Wilde who said:

" Try everything once, except Necrophilia and Morris Dancing" ?

"When a new book is published, read an old one" 

One of the two Addyman's Bookshops, (one His, one Hers) Hay-on-Wye.

This was Richard Booth's (The once self proclaimed "King of Hay") legendary bookshop. Now it owned by a rich American lady who has remodelled it into a gorgeous space: A cafe, a bar, leather lounges, an art cinema upstairs, beautiful bookcases, witty signage... The only thing missing is... interesting books.

The " 3 2 1" Bookshop in the Hay main street (I had originally suggested "54321"to the owner, as in the Manfred Mann song, but it didn't fit on the window...) Remainder books from one pound and one of the busiest shops during the Hay Festival.

I love that incomprehensible Welsh stuff.
Only 17 people actually seem to speak it.

Hay Cinema Bookshop. Rumoured to be about to close down.

"Honesty" bookshelves outside Hay Cinema Bookshop.
Strictly for tourists.

Francis Edward Antiquarian Books above Hay Cinema. Not restocked since I cleaned it out 6 months ago. Very nice and helpful staff, but all the stock has gone to their Charing Cross Road shop.

A particularly poignant picture for me... I took a photo of that hanging basket 20 years ago on my first visit to Hay-on-Wye. Since then, the owner Brian became one of my closest friends.

Now it's closing down.

My favourite pub in Hay : Kilvert's.
As in "Kilvert's Diary"

Goodbye Hay... Until next time. Love you to bits.
Pity about the books.

Elizabeth's Bookshop Bag on the banks of the Thames

Some Philadelphia images

Rory in Philly

This warehouse is full of books.....!

My Hertz UK Vauxhall Minerva Hertz rental car. Biggest bit of crap I have ever driven.

My Vauxhall Minerva Hertz UK rental car in Jackie's backyard: Most useless piece of CRAP I have driven since our 1965 Morris 1100. Underpowered, no torque. Needs to rev in 1st just to get over the gravel of cousin's driveway and a 500m run up plus shiftdown into second gear to overtake a car at 50 mph. The rear doors inexplicably open backwards, tiny boot, can't disengage the handbrake without taking foot off accellerator or clutch. Appalling!

London to New York to Pittsburgh takes me 24 hours... Part 1 LHR to USA

Some days just last a very long time.

London Morning

7 hour jetlag to London so up at 5:00 am this morning in London. Body still on Perth time, i.e. noon.
I seem to do a lot of "5:00 a.m.'s" on these roadtrips.
The first cloudless morning in London since I got here on Friday.

An English sky washed with a pleasant, soft un-Australian blue.

LHR Terminal 5

I dislike admitting it, but LHR Terminal 5 is quite possibly the best airline terminal in the world.
It's well laid out and seems to work efficiently now that they have sorted out the early teething problems.(Little snafus like all your luggage disappearing for 5 days and turning up in Moscow).

The eating options are plentiful (including Wagamama), the shops are interesting and there is a bit of a buzz sadly missing from most international airports, even the much acclaimed Changi* and Hong Kong airports.

Arrived early so had time to share some nicotine addiction with BA staffers in the smoking bunker outside  at the far end of the Departures Concourse (presumably the only place uniformed BA staff are allowed to indulge their filthy habit).
How times change... (Yes, yes for the better of course!)
Those of you that can travel half price on public transport may remember the Peter Stuyvesant adverts featuring handsome airline pilots and glamorous hosties puffing away.
Now there is something weird about chatting to a four-stripe 747 pilot and a bevy of high-heeled attendants dragging on fags while hiding behind a screen wall.
I found it vaguely disconcerting.

BA Lounge serves a jolly good breakfast without those silly restrictions in Oz about no alcohol before 12 noon.

Hot bacon rolls, french pastries, Bloody Mary and all the Daily Mail  you can stomach at 7am

On the plane to JFK: Delighted that what appeared to be an American Airlines booking turned out to be a British Airways plane with those truly ruly flat bed seats that I like**.

This is good and getting better.

No it is not.

This plane was hit by lightning and a few things don't work...

After farting around for half an hour on the stand, we taxi.
Then we stop, then we go back to the stand.
The Captain announces very cheerfully that this plane was "hit badly by lightning three days ago" and a few bits an' pieces went rather kaput.
Including something deep in this nose-cone without which, apparently, no one since Lindbergh would dare cross the Atlantic.

The nasty nose cone covering the kaput thingamebob

A fluorescent gaggle of sturdy men in yellow jackets swarm aboard (including one tagged "Turnaround Manager" - which is what I've decided I want to be when I grow up) and converse in far too jolly a fashion with the captain whose gadgetman's dream is right in front of me.
Why is there laughter in the cockpit in this time of crisis? I don't like it!
After much swarming and too much PA jocularity from our captain we finally rejoin the let's-get-out-of-here-queue on the runway.
We are 1 1/2 hours late and my JFK - Pittsburgh connection is looking sick.

However, a Bloody Mary puts me in the mood for a bite of lunch.
A few tasty scallops and a glass of Riesling are promising and maybe things aren't so bad after all.

Chicken Chernobyl

Until the main course arrives: Chicken Tikka a la Chernobyl.
It is extremely ugly.
The very nice and friendly mothery hostess lady confesses to me:
"While we were back on the stand, I thought I'd save a bit of time and zap them.
Maybe I did it a bit too much..."

Poulet Chernobyl avec Agent Orange

I'm sure it will take pride of place on the BA inflight menu.
I could not eat a single morsel of it, so asked for the whole bottle of Riesling and a triple portion of the cheese.

Six hours at JFK

Despite JFK staff hustling me at speed through the US citizens line (a new and pleasant experience), I am too late for my Pittsburgh connection.
The next flight is not until 8:30 tonight (which is 1:45 am tomorrow morning London time and 8:45 am tomorrow Perth time!) and it is now 2:45. The joys of travel.

I hang around outside Terminal 8 in the sunshine, engaging in ESL conversation with backpackers from somewhere east of the Elbe. 

After an hour I give up trying to explain the rules of cricket to them and head for the lounge.

The American Airlines Flagship Lounge is a big step up from the two-drink-vouchers-per-customer mean and nasty feel of the Admirals' Club. It's almost as good as our Qantas / BA lounges back in Oz.

I have been on the go for 15 hours now... 

I need a drink and something to make up for the Chook Chernobyl.

"Droop Dead!" Oh how I long for some News of the World instead of Perth's dreary Sunday Times.

Buffalo wings, sushi, a turkey roll and several glasses of excellent Chablis later I can really enjoy the New York Daily News earth-shattering scoop on Viagra being found in Osama bin Laden's fridge.

Pittsburgh, PA

Quick flight to Pittsburgh, but after 21 hours travelling I'm beginning to rather droop myself.

Pittsburgh airport 10:30 at night...

Where is everybody? Has there been a war and nobody has Twittered it?

I am so pleased to see our visit to Pittsburgh coincides with a convention of the National Rifle Association. That should be good for a few barbed comments from Rory about the state of the nation of our revered allies.

Finally, 23 hours after setting off on this leg of the trip, Rory and I sit in the Sheraton Station Square bar watching the Conference for Christian Unity delegates progress from self-righteous and abstemious mineral water to Margaritas after 11:00 o'clock and certain church representatives becoming potentially very biblically unified for the night as they get more blotto. 

Truly uplifting to see and all in a jolly ecumenical spirit.

24 hours after leaving SW12 for LHR finally to bed with a Pittsburgh view out the window.

It's been a long day and warehouses start 6:00 am tomorrow.

Footnotes:

*Changi Singapore has never worked for me.
It's exceptionally efficient, but is always undergoing a scaffolding / boarded-up revamp of some sort which makes it hard to figure out what overall picture they are actually trying to achieve.
Pre the last revamp, the Changi retail layout had that disconcerting "repeat every 100 metres" pattern: Same shops, same brands, same looking staff repeated in every direction. Add that to jetlag and a few too many shandies on the plane and a brisk leg-stretching walk becomes a bit of a headspin..
In the current revamp, a spree of designer label shops is about to be added by 2012. That may improve the look of things, but I have not found Singapore prices - especially designer label - anything to write home about since the late 1970's.
Smokers' Cough Zone: It may have been there forever, but I just discovered a Nicotine Addiction Area almost underneath the Business Lounges.
No need to climb up guiltily up through the kiddies' playground into the Harry's Bar & Cactus Garden (Who on earth wants to look at a cactus garden in 99% humidity.. They are nasty, spiteful looking things that could have been reject designs for extras in The Day of the Triffids.)

**Flat is good. Despite the claims of other airlines, I still find that BA Business Class beds suit me the best. Yes, they are narrow , but - unlike the gradual slope in the bottom 30% of of other airlines - they are truly flat./
The secret is in that simple little pop-up footstool that connects to the bottom of the seat and keeps it horizontal.

USA Part 2 Pittsburgh, Niagara Falls

Pittsburgh at Dawn. Why do all our buying days start so early?

One of Pittsburgh's dozens of impressive steel bridges

Rory at a warehouse. (3 square miles of books to look at...)

Pittsburgh Airport security the pits...

Just finished reminding Rory what a nice little country town airport Pittsburgh is and that there was really no need for us to have arrived there as early as we did... when we hit the queue to get through security.

TSA officials manning security checks are obviously the brightest men & women this great nation can produce to protect its borders, airports and public toilets.

Because it was lunchtime these dedicated heroes, totally appropriately, decided to shut down 3 out of 4 booths so that the 250plus passengers queueing to check in could have a little extra time to get to know each other in the queue and carefully avoid making illegal jokes within hearing of our uniformed protectors.

Niagara Falls and then Rises in My Opinion

Pittsburgh-Chicago (Elizabeth used to route via CHI just for the Cinnabons at the airport) - Toronto - Niagara, Canada.

For many years I was underwhelmed about impending visits to Niagara, believing The Falls to be the only good thing about "PlaceWhereWaterPissesOverEdgeAtGreatSpeed" (or whatever the original Red Indian name for Niagara was).

Not that I have anything against a town where - apart from the Falls - "Ripley's Believe It or Not House of Fun" is the top of the list attraction.

I have been to Blackpool.

I like people in tracksuit bottoms who drink Coors on Monday mornings at Thank God It's Friday with their fried Mars bars.

I used to own a tracksuit.

I think Tony the Wog's World Famous Ribs (or some name like that) deserves its spot on the list of gourmet restaurants.

Somebody's got to come last.

However, I have changed my view...

I now actually look forward to going there and enjoy it!

Firstly, our local supplier generously offers to accommodate us either in a B & B next to his warehouse that I swear could double as the house of Norman Bates's house in "Psycho"...

Or in comfortable suites overlooking the Falls...

Niagara Falls at dawn (We do a lot of dawn.)

(Much as I am an admirer of Tony Perkins, we invariably opt for the view.)

Secondly, they transport us by limo to and from airports.

(Even when, on a misguided whim we fly into Toronto instead of Buffalo.)

I am easily impressed by ridiculously long cars with drivers in black caps who hold open the door for me and pretend not to notice my $39.95 K-Mart luggage.

Thirdly, we went to dinner at very cheesy but very pretty Niagara-on-the-Lake via Lake Toronto.

The British, the Rebels, the French and the Indian fought for decades to own the land around Lake Toronto...

And now real estate values there are down 30%... The futility of war.

Fourthly, in Nia-gara the tulips ara on Via-gara!