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Kenan Samms

Work/Life: Say It Ain't So, Shoeless Joe

"Shoeless" Joe Jackson got that nickname for taking off his shoes once in the second game of a doubleheader in 1908.One hundred and one years later, TSA is still making Shoeless Joes of us all with the apparently immutable requirement ...READ»

Kenan Samms

Work/Life: What Are Your Chances of Getting Bumped From Your Next Flight?

Bumping is the nemesis of the business traveler. Leisure travelers often have a certain amount of latitude as to when they need to arrive at a destination. Not so with the road warrior, who is a clockwork captive. While it is highly ...READ»

Kenan Samms

Work/Life: What Are the Chances for a Passenger Bill of Rights?

When the founding fathers endowed us with certain inalienable rights I would have hoped they had the foresight to assume these truths would have been self-evident even when sitting on an airplane.Unfortunately, it seems like the ...READ»

Kenan Samms

Work/Life: The Bus Also Rises

Anne Marie Chaker of The Wall Street Journal wrote an excellent review recently of the new bus services that have come onto the scene to cater to business travelers. Her story includes a charming video of her trip to Baltimore on ...READ»

Kenan Samms

Work/Life: Is the Cutback on Business Travel Cutting Into Business?

 Business travel is the oil that lubricates the wheels of business. I've always felt that companies that cut back on travel for business are cutting back on their business's prospects. Now several surveys say that while ...READ»

Kenan Samms

Technology: Mobile Boarding Passes: Convenience, or Technology for Technology's Sake?

When new software is introduced, such as whiz-bang applications for mobile devices, technology reviewers tend to focus whether it is the latest, greatest, or coolest thing to hit the market. Less often do you see reviewers take a step ...READ»

Kenan Samms

Work/Life: Take My Breathe Away

I'm sure it comes as no news that spending time in a sealed, pressurized aluminum tube at high altitude is probably not the most healthful thing you can do to your body. For that reason, one would think that fliers might have ...READ»

Kenan Samms

Work/Life: Let's Make Fixing the Air Traffic Control System a Priority

It gets pretty cloudy in Juneau, Alaska. Constant overcast, plus the fact that the airport there is surrounded by mountains, has caused many flight delays and cancellations. Fifteen years ago Alaska Airlines (AA) came up with a ...READ»

Kenan Samms

Work/Life: Carriers Need Wings. And Credibility, Too.

Enough is enough. On July 17, I blogged about Ryanair's announcement that it was mulling the idea of requiring passengers to pay to for potty privileges. Ryanair has now topped itself. It now is floating the trial balloon ...READ»

Kenan Samms

Work/Life: Back Up There

Okay, I have a confession. For the past several months I have been a "virtual" road warrior. Like many of you I, too, have been affected by corporate travel restrictions. As a result, today I crossed the jetway threshold for the first ...READ»

Kenan Samms

Work/Life: All A-Twitter About Airborne Pay Potties

Most travel experts think Ryanair's announcement that it is considering charging for bathroom access on the plane was purely a PR ploy. But I think it was more in the nature of a trial balloon. Yes, Ryanair is justly regarded ...READ»

Kenan Samms

Work/Life: Carriers Continue to Cut Capacity

With no sign of a recovery in airline travel, and with aviation gas costs ramping up, the major carriers are continuing to cut capacity, led by Delta Air Lines and American Airlines. What this indicates is that we are not out of ...READ»

Kenan Samms

Work/Life: Just Plane Kids

Before you criticize someone you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. Yes, it's an old joke but I'm reminded of it when I fly with kids - whether the kids ...READ»

Kenan Samms

Technology: Transparency in Pricing Means Technology in Practice

Fliers increasingly are warming up to the concept of choice, aka à la carte, meaning paying only for those services you want in the airport or on the plane. But going à la carte comprehensively, that is, across hundreds of ...READ»

Kenan Samms

Technology: The Wild Green Yonder

In January, Continental Airlines became the first U.S. airline to test biofuel in a jet engine. The Boeing 737 used a B50 blend of jet-A, jatropha, and algae - so it was 50 percent conventional jet fuel and 50 percent ...READ»

Kenan Samms

Work/Life: Whole-Body Scanners Aren't a Peep Show

Whole-body scanners will replace metal detectors, in a little-noticed policy shift at the TSA (Transportation Security Administration). This means that instead of walking through the familiar security portals that stand next to the ...READ»

Kenan Samms

Work/Life: "Secure Flight" Takes to the Air in August

Travelers will see an added layer of security when the TSA finishes implementing "Secure Flight" officially on August 15, 2009. Travelers will also see an added security hurdle because Secure Flight requires that all ...READ»

Kenan Samms

Work/Life: If You're a Hotel, the "AIG Effect" Is Real

Reflecting concern at the thought of a road warrior indulging in luxury, corporate travel departments have cancelled an estimated $1 billion worth of industry conferences in the first two months of 2009. Called the "AIG ...READ»

Kenan Samms

Work/Life: Fleets Are Shrinking As Planes Are Mothballed

The downturn in air traffic is leading to a major makeover in air carriers' fleets. Flight capacity demand among cargo and passenger carriers has deteriorated faster than expected, according to the IATA (International Air Transport ...READ»

Kenan Samms

Technology: When Is a Cola Not a Cola?

This month, Northwest Airlines' identity is merging with that of Delta Air Lines, starting with abandonment of the old Northwest uniforms. FoxBusiness.com reports that baggage counters, gates, and luggage claim areas are all being ...READ»

Kenan Samms

Work/Life: Business Travel and Social Media

Do you really want people to know when you're not home? Or where you are going to be? You need to consider that if you are using online tools which circulate that level of detail to a social network. I'm sure a lot of ...READ»

Kenan Samms

Work/Life: NextGen Would Boost the Economy

With all the talk about using taxpayer funds to stimulate economic growth, you'd have to think that someone in Washington would have remembered how important air travel is to a healthy economy. Right now corporate America is ...READ»

Kenan Samms

Work/Life: No More Downtime

The actual in-flight experience has had little to recommend to it since it stopped being a luxury characterized by attentive service and turned into a bus in the sky. Yes, that was sometime in the last century. Frankly, even ...READ»

Kenan Samms
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Technology: Destination Moon

Travel technology is taking one small leap for mankind in this moon walk anniversary year. It is, after all, forty years this July 20 that the Armstrong and Aldrin set down on the moon. It is also the year that the private ...READ»

Kenan Samms

Work/Life: As If Your Life Depended On It

How frequently do you think about what you put on the line every time you travel? Probably not often, because doing anything as remarkable as zipping 30,000 feet into the stratosphere inside a metal tube with wings over and over ...READ»

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