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E L L I O T T ' S TRAVEL NOTES
Travel news, opinion and analysis

August 20, 2004

London Strikes Loom Next Week
United Airlines ground staff at Heathrow airport plan to strike on August 27, the same day British Airways staff have threatened a walkout, a union says. The Transport & General Workers Union said on Friday about 700 United Airlines baggage handlers and check-in staff at Heathrow would go on strike for 24 hours from 4:30 a.m. next Friday. The union said in a statement that United staff plan to strike after rejecting the company's pay offer. United is 20 months into a complex bankruptcy case. Reuters | Posted 6:30 a.m.
• United Likely to End Pension Plans (Bloomberg)
• Talks Resume in BA Dispute (BBC)

This is one strike United Airlines, which is already mired in bankruptcy, can't afford. My advice: Avoid London next week, if possible.

Sen. Kennedy Flagged By No-Fly List
U.S. Sen. Edward M. "Ted" Kennedy said yesterday that he was stopped and questioned at airports on the East Coast five times in March because his name appeared on the government's secret "no-fly" list. Federal air security officials said the initial error that led to scrutiny of the Massachusetts Democrat should not have happened even though they recognize that the no-fly list is imperfect. But privately they acknowledged being embarrassed that it took the senator and his staff more than three weeks to get his name removed. A senior administration official, who spoke on condition he not be identified, said Kennedy was stopped because the name "T. Kennedy" has been used as an alias by someone on the list of terrorist suspects. Washington Post | Posted 6:35 a.m.

Chair Gets Coked Up at Best Western
For a brief time, the Best Western Inn in Graham, N.C., had a chair worth about $50,000. The chair in room 204 wasn't an antique. Instead, an Ohio couple who stayed in the room Saturday found 4.4 pounds of cocaine in the chair, police said. Graham police Capt. Jeff Prichard said someone cut a slit in the chair's seat and tucked two packages of cocaine inside. A truck driver from Ohio and his wife rented a room there Saturday and discovered the cocaine about 6 p.m., Officer Robert Lovette said in a police report. The truck driver told Lovette that a package fell out when he moved the chair. The couple picked up the package, thought it might be narcotics and called 911. AP | Posted 6:45 a.m.

Priceline, Ramada to Offer Blind Access - In one of the first enforcement actions of the Americans with Disabilities Act on the Internet, two major travel services have agreed to make sites more accessible to the blind and visually impaired. Priceline.com and Ramada.com have agreed to changes that will allow users with "screen reader software" and other technology to navigate and listen to the text throughout their Web sites, according to New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. AP | Posted 7 a.m.

American, BWIA, at Fault in Passenger Death - An airline that forced an elderly woman to check her bag with her medical devices bears responsibility for her subsequent death after losing the bag, a US appeals court ruled on Thursday. A lower court ruled in 2002 that Americans Airlines parent company AMR and BWIA International Airways should pay $226,238.81 to Caroline Neischer's relatives because she died soon after her bag was lost. Reuters | Posted 7:05 a.m.

For Al Gore, Speeding Ticket Really Hertz - Former presidential candidate Al Gore is facing a $141 speeding ticket after being cited by officers in the small coastal town of Astoria, Ore. The Democrat who won the popular vote in 2000 but lost the electoral vote was driving a white, four-door Lincoln on his way to visit family on Aug. 3. Gore, who was alone in the Hertz rental car, was zapped with a radar gun and clocked at 75 mph along Highway 26 where the posted speed limit is 55. AP | Posted 7:10 a.m.

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• Off the Record ... travel spoof site Travel Fox is mocking the legacy carriers' seemingly neverending efforts to add - and then take away - passenger legroom. In its latest dispatch, it reports that an airline called Britannia is keeping the seats bolted where they are and teaching its flyers to get along in the space allotted to them. How's that? It has hired world-renown contortionist Melinda Babarolini, to develop a passenger training program that will incorporate many of the exercises that she and her sisters used in their acts when touring with circuses across Europe. I'm sure some airlines have at least thought about doing that. Posted 7:15 a.m. | Send us your comments.

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