Travel Agents May Go On Hunger Strike. . .

Yes, you heard correctly. Apparently Indian travel agents are so incensed about foreign airlines withdrawing their commission for selling tickets, the latest being Singapore Airlines who have taken away their 5%, that 5,000 of them may take this unprecedented action sometime next year.

How long before travel agents cease to exist throughout the world and everything is booked directly and online?

Flydubai to Beat the Credit crunch?

According to wire reports The Gulf emirate of Dubai announced today that it is to launch its first budget airline. It will be called flydubai and will start with flights to the Lebanese capital of Beirut on June 1 and to Jordan's capital Amman on June 2, chairman Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed al-Maktoum told reporters. Flydubai will operate two next-generation Boeing 737-800 aircraft on both routes and apparently this is all happening, "despite the global financial crisis."

Maybe that's why they need a budget airline?

Flying Blind?

A lady was flying from Seattle to San Francisco. Unexpectedly, the plane was diverted to Sacramento along the way. The flight attendant explained that there would be a delay, and if the passengers wanted to get off the aircraft the plane would re-board in 50 minutes.
Everybody got off the plane except one lady who was blind. The man had noticed her as he walked by and could tell the lady was blind because her Seeing Eye dog lay quietly underneath the seats in front of her throughout the entire flight.

He could also tell she had flown this very flight before because the pilot approached her, and calling her by name, said, "Kathy, we are in Sacramento for almost an hour. Would you like to get off and stretch your legs?" The blind lady replied, "No thanks, but maybe Buddy would like to stretch his legs."

All the passengers who had disembarked and were waiting in the gate area came to a complete standstill when they looked up and saw the pilot walk off the plane with a guide dog! The pilot was even wearing sunglasses. There was mayhem in the gate area as people not only tried to change planes, but tried to change airlines!

Drunk and VERY Disorderly at 32,000 feet

We’ve said it often but it seems that some people never learn. Booze and flying just don’t mix. This time it was a drunken passenger who began punching and kicking the windows of a Thomson holiday flight from Egypt to Cardiff, at 32,000ft has found himself in court. Apparently Gareth Jackson downed 11 beers and a quarter of a litre of vodka before getting on board. As a result the 34-year-old was jailed for eight months after he admitted being drunk on an aircraft and interfering (no not that way!) with cabin crew.
Cardiff Crown Court heard that Jackson caused 'near panic' among the 230 passengers on the five-and-a-half hour flight. It started when he became aggressive and abusive to his now heavily pregnant partner Emma Hall, passengers and cabin crew. Parents even resorted to putting headphones on their children so they could not hear him shouting and swearing at one point the captain, William Darroth, considered diverting to Venice.

Instead the pilot sped up the flight and authorised the use of restraints on Jackson; while Jackson was in the toilet, some male passengers agreed to help cabin crew restrain him. He at first broke free from the plastic restraints but they managed to secure him with the child seatbelts, although Jackson continued to shout for the rest of the flight before being arrested at Cardiff Airport.

Sentencing Jackson, Judge Neil Bidder QC said: 'It's fair to say you engendered near panic on the flight.'

Southwest Airlines Rap

Brilliant!

Bit of a Giveaway

Nil points to the would-be illegal immigrant who was caught at Manchester airport last week. The Mexican man was doing well with his story that he was visiting a friend in the UK until customs officers spotted a 'Good Luck with your new life in the UK' card in his luggage. He didn't really have much of a case from that point on and, having admitted his real intentions, was deported the next day.

Casting Aspersions

Full marks for creativity go to the Chilean gentleman who was arrested at Barcelona airport last week for attempting to smuggle cocaine into Spain by ingenious means. The 66 year old had a genuinely broken shin. What was less pukka was the cast he was wearing; it was almost entirely of compressed cocaine! Not content with that he also has six fake beer cans and two hollowed out stools, all of which were packed full with 'showbiz sherbet' too.