Air Travel – What to Wear & What Not to Wear
Breeze through airport security or by following a few simple rules make it as easy as possible for the personnel at airport security. Why complicate matters and make your traveling more strenuous and troublesome than need be. For the most part it comes down to common sense, taking care to dress in the right fashion and manner and carrying as little metal on your person and clothing as possible.
First of all carry as little metal on your person and clothing as you can. Much of what you will carry is non essential anyways. Obvious pieces of metal or items containing metal are coins, metal pens and keys. Carry as little change and metal in your pockets as possible. What you do have and your keys as well- place these in the plastic trays provided. Less obvious but can be considered optional by many but essential as well as mandatory are jeweler and even heavy metal watches. Include in this group metal belt buckles. All can set of the metal detectors in the line up, make the job of airport security more strenuous than need be, and cause needless delay and delays to yourself, your traveling company and companions and the rest of the travelers in the line.
Next there are items of clothing and accessories that have metal components as well, that will not ordinarily be thought of as being in this group. They too will cost unnecessary time and efforts. Include in this grouping heavy metal work boots with reinforced steel and metal for protection, footwear that is heavily soled and lastly expensive shoes which may have metal buckles. If you can pack these items, pack them away. Take the effort to be selective and choose clothing better chosen, with less metal components. Even the metal in woman’s bras can set off sensitive metal detector devices. In addition you may be asked to remove, by airport security. Heavy and thick soled footwear as a matter of standard current security practices and routines.
Some items that you may consider standard either may not be allowed to be placed on aircraft – or customs in a foreign country may not allow. Check both with the airline and the foreign authorities. It’s also a wise idea to think of this on your return trip as well back home. Some drugs and medicines while over the counter either in the US or abroad may require a doctor’s prescription on the other side. You may well have the provide a doctors prescription or pharmacy vial with the doctor’s orders on the vial or have the contraband seized with personal or financial ramifications for yourself or your traveling companions. Remember lack of knowledge is no grounds for innocence. You cannot expect customs officers to be experts on drugs and pharmacology – to diminish the situation and the apparent innocence of the medication. If it’s on the list as a prohibited, not allowed or banned substance or requires a doctor’s order and can provide such documentation in form – then watch out.
Lastly make sure that all of your electronic devices are fully charged up. If the items require batteries have the batteries fully charged or if the batteries are of the disposable throw away type – as in some digital cameras – place fresh batteries in the device. You may well be asked to turn on, demonstrate and test the device. If for example the battery in your laptop computer is dead on arrival, charging time may be necessary at the inspections site for inspection and approval of the laptop computer. On top of that if the charger is safely packed away in luggage en-route to the airplane – well this is all an unnecessary foolish, unnecessary chain of events – which is easily preventable with some foresight and common sense.
In the end it can be said by simple planning and coordination with a few simple rules of travel at airport security you can well make both your trip more trouble free and the job of airport security to provide security for the traveling public a lot easier and less work.
Air Travel – The New First Class Dining Experience
With first-class air travel reaching enormous amounts in regards to cost, what are the airlines doing for their first-class passengers in exchange for such hefty dues? For one, they are upping the ante when it comes to the onboard first-class dinging experience. As we all know, airfare has sky rocketed recently as the average first-class round trip flight is around $13,000. Yes, a much more comfy seat and more leg room may be worth the price, but airlines are beginning to do away with those pre-determined menus and beginning to go so far as to hiring their very own on-board chefs.
Yes, you heard it correctly. With several airlines, your very own first-class chef is available on your flight. Of course, much of this sort of activity is being done on more foreign flights, but it seems to be quite a popular trend these days. The number one and number two rated best on-board meals currently go to Gulf Air and Cathay Pacific (Gulf Air being the airline with the personal chef aboard, of course.) While this all may be a bit ‘overdone’, like a fresh egg made to order at Cathay Pacific, it really only costs the airlines about $30-50 per traveler. This all seems like a pretty good deal for the airline, as well as the traveler. That is, if this is what they expect out of a $13,000 flight. But it does not end here.
Airlines, such as Singapore Airlines is providing first-class travelers heir choice of beverage, including champagne including Dom Perignon upon boarding the flight. This pleasant experience in accented with a lovely serving of world famous caviar with travelers’ meals. While all of this seems a bit overdone, one may begin to wonder if it is really a bit over the top. In the United States, many of us have not experienced such pleasantries on our flights. We are pretty lucky if we get a free box of snacks, like Southwest Airlines has been so kind as to provide on several flights. Are airlines going to be jockeying for such positions in the future in the US as they have been on foreign airlines? If so, then how far? Today it sounds as if our airlines are really having some trouble dealing with things such as oil prices and rising costs in order to do business.
It is actually a very interesting point in time in regards to the airlines as competition is heating up as well as airfare prices. How high will they go? Who knows? What I wonder about is if the first-class upgrades will really propel the airlines into better profits, ultimately cost them more money, or if they actually have more money than we think? All I know is this is getting very interesting; however, not interesting enough to raise prices for airfare even more just to suit the personal chefs on board. So, what will happen next with the airlines seems to be headed towards raising the bar in terms of quality of experience. But, how will this affect everyone? Hopefully, it will allow airlines to pick themselves up across the board and provide a pleasant flying experience for everyone in the air.