FunnyColumns

Computer programmer busted for in-flight entertainment

I'm not sure what in-flight entertainment SouthWest Airlines offers, but it apparently wasn't enough for Murali Krishna Nookella, a Delaware computer programmer heading to a conference in Denver. Now he finds himself banned from commercial flights, all because he couldn't wait until the plane landed and he got to his hotel room. (Via UberDesi)

According to court papers, Nookella was sitting in a window seat and chatted up the woman in the middle seat during the first part of the flight until she put on headphones and turned away to focus on her computer.

The passenger reported Nookella tried to read her e-mail over her shoulder and, after she shot him a look, pulled a blanket up over his waist and closed his eyes. She then saw motion under the blanket, the papers say. [Delaware Online]

His motion put her in motion: she looked for another seat.

When she turned back, she saw him exposed and made eye contact, according to the criminal complaint.

"You caught me," he allegedly said, to which the woman responded, "Yeah, I did."

Nookella, 35, moved to a different seat in the back of the plane and the woman reported the incident to a flight attendant. Law enforcement officials met Nookella as he departed the flight

"This was not a typical flight on Southwest Airlines," Assistant U.S. Attorney James Allison said Thursday. [Link]

Yes, it wasn't a typical flight. So you can relax, ladies. No need to keep an eye on the guy next to you with a blanket up to his waist. But if you happen to see some motion, you'd better alert the authorities. After all, he could be smuggling lizards in his underwear, trying to detonate some explosives or, even worse, picturing you with no clothes on.

Getting intimate with the airport security officer

Don’t you just hate terrorists? Even when they fail, they make life difficult for us.

Back in December 2001, just three months after 9/11, Richard Reid, a passenger on an American Airlines flight, tried to ignite explosives hidden in his shoes. Fortunately for everyone on board, Reid’s shoe size was considerably higher than his IQ. He brought attention to himself, was subdued by passengers and is currently serving a life sentence at a maximum security prison in Colorado, the only prisoner in America required to wear plastic see-through shoes.

Thanks to the shoe bomber, many passengers were asked to remove their shoes as they passed through airport security and, as you can imagine, some of them made quite a stink. And others made a stink about the stink. As for me, I found myself cursing the shoe bomber in several languages, thanks to the book “The Rough Guide to World Cursing.”

Me: “$#@& shoe bomber! If it weren’t for him, I’d be able to travel without showing everyone the hole in my sock.”

Security officer: “That’s a big hole. Do you mind if I look inside it?”

Fly T-class and enjoy your freedom

Sometimes you don't need a ticket to travel on a commercial airline. You just need a maintenance job at the airport. You can sneak onto a plane just before takeoff and fly T-class. That's toilet class.

An Indian man who returned to his home country from Saudi Arabia on an Air India flight without a ticket or a passport has been granted bail.

Stowaway Habib Hussain hid in the plane's toilet to escape what he said was a life of "bonded slavery". [Link]

If I was being held as a slave, I'd be willing to fly T-class too. The best part of flying T-class is that you don't have to stand in line to do your business. Another advantage, of course, is that you won't be served any airline food. A third plus is that you'll have plenty of legroom -- as long as you don't mind the hard seat.

Habib Hussain, who is from a village in Moradabad (UP), had gone to Saudi Arabia six months back and was employed as a loader by an agency providing services at Medina Airport. Habib boarded the aircraft for maintenance work in the Airbus A-330's toilet and locked himself in. He was spotted mid-air in the plane carrying 273 Haj pilgrims and arrested at Sanganer Airport in Jaipur late on the night of December 25. [Link]

What was he doing carrying all those pilgrims? I'm not sure. It would have been better for him to stay put in the toilet, instead of showing off his manhood.

Later, in an exclusive interview to TOI (published on January 4), Habib said that Indian workers were treated like cattle in Saudi Arabia and because of this harassment, he chose to travel without passport and ticket. He also claimed that he paid Rs 1 lakh to an agent for the job in Saudi Arabia, for which he had to sell his ancestral properties in Moradabad. [Link]

He gave an exclusive interview to Times of India (TOI), but only after receiving a text message from his lawyer: "Let TOI write about TOIlet."

Indian workers being treated like cattle in Saudi Arabia is nothing new -- it's been happening for years. Saudi employers know they can lure many Indians with lofty promises such as, "We will treat you as well as we treat our cows!"

Save money -- get a cardboard windshield

Just when you thought it was safe to drive on the highway, just when you felt relieved that the government had banned cell phones while driving, here comes a truck with a windshield made of cardboard. And a bright-as-a-turnip driver who's sticking his head out the window to see where he's going. (Straight to the unemployment line, that's where.)

The trucker has now lost his licence, after he drove 800km (500 miles) down a motorway with a sheet of cardboard covering his shattered windscreen.

Sing Li, 24, navigated by sticking his head out of the driver’s window. Unfortunately, this caused him to become rather cold - when he was arrested in Henan, eastern China, not only was one eye frozen shut, but his head was blue from the cold.

'I didn't want to fall behind in my delivery schedule and I couldn't afford a repair,' he told a court. [Link]

It must have been a tough choice -- whether to fall behind his delivery schedule or scare the bejesus out of thousands of drivers. 

His mistake, of course, was not reading the Department of Transportation's pamphlet "How to Make a Windshield out of Cardboard." He could have saved himself a lot of trouble by just following Rule No. 1: Before sticking the cardboard on your truck, make sure you cut out a pair of eye holes.

A ticket for not going metric

If you drive between Canada and America, as I occasionally do, you have to learn to switch between the metric system and the Imperial system. Not all signs are like the one pictured here, specifying the unit of measurement. And if you aren't careful, you might find yourself getting a speeding ticket in Canada or being passed by a combine in America.

OTTAWA — A Californian discovered the concept of exchange rate doesn't just apply to money when Ontario Provincial Police arrested him for speeding Monday.
"I'm from California and the sign says 100," said the driver, who police said was clocked at 148 km/h during a safety blitz on Highway 401 in South Stormont, 100 kilometres southeast of Ottawa.
In miles per hour, the driver was only doing about 90. Nevertheless the driver was slapped with a speeding ticket. [Link]

Before getting the ticket, he must have been really excited. Perhaps he even called one of his friends in California. "Guess what, Larry? The speed limit here is 100. What a great country! And the best part is, most people are only going 60! They're so freakin' laidback, these Canadians. I've got a good mind to move here. But I hear that the weather sucks. One guy told me that it never gets above 35 degrees! Can you imagine?"

Photo by David Herrera

Air India: Not too crowded

If an Air India flight is fully booked, don't worry. They might still have space for you, if not in economy or first class, then definitely in the cockpit. 

Air India is once again in trouble. The airline, in a shocking violation of air safety norms, allowed three extra passengers on board a full-loaded flight.

While one woman was accommodated in the cockpit's jump seat behind the pilots, two others were made to sit on foldable seats meant for cabin crew. [CNN-IBN]

I decided to interview an Air India official about this.

Me: "Three extra passengers? How could you do this?"

AI official: "It was easy. We put one passenger in the cockpit and the other two in crew seats."

Me: "But weren't you breaking the rules?"

AI official: "It's really not that bad. At least we didn't make any passenger sit on the pilot's lap. Only the flight attendant did that."

Me: "But wasn't the plane too crowded?"

AI official: "Our planes are not as crowded as trains and buses. If you look outside our planes, you will never see a passenger hanging onto the wing. We are the only airline with a written policy to keep all our passengers inside."

Me: "That's commendable. But people say you are just trying to make money by stuffing passengers onto a plane."

Air India: "It is not a question of making money. It is a question of satisfying our passengers. Perhaps you have heard of our new slogan: 'Air India: We'll find space for you.'"

Me: "That's pretty good, but it reminds me of another slogan: 'Shaadi.com: We'll find spouse for you.'"

Thank goodness for the Pickle Squad

Flying can be scary. You never know what the other passengers are up to. Some might want to hijack the plane, some might want to detonate shoe bombs in mid-flight and some might want to threaten everyone with their homemade mango pickle: "Show me a Bollywood movie NOW or I'll set your tongue on fire!"

Thank goodness for the Pickle Squad. They really live up to their slogan: "We get you out of pickles."

An airport summoned a bomb squad over a suspicious item in luggage that turned out to be pickled mangoes.

The X-ray equipment used by TSA airport security in Columbus could not detect what was inside a sealed canister in a bag being inspected around 7 p.m. Tuesday.

The container was labeled "baby food," but authorities said security personnel became suspicious when the woman who owned the suitcase claimed the canister held pickles.

The fire department bomb squad removed the item from the airport and detonated it, discovering the mangoes.

No one was hurt. Flights and other airport operations were not interrupted. [Link]

Phew! That was a close call. Imagine what might have happened if the woman had taken the mango pickle on the plane. Flight crews just don't have enough training to deal with such a calamity.

You may think I'm exaggerating the potential for disaster, but just remember: This was not just one small bottle of pickle, this was a CANISTER, with enough pickle to send all 250 passengers rushing for the fire extinguisher.

A sweet apology on the train

When it comes to providing service to customers, nobody's perfect. But what separates the good companies from the rest is their desire to rectify the mistakes, to make things better. Just look at the fine example Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) set this week.

When passengers aboard the Delhi-Mumbai August Kranti Rajdhani express reached Vadodara early on Tuesday morning, they were surprised to receive neatly wrapped boxes of sweets and chocolates with an apology message from the Railways.

Apparently, the passengers had not been served snacks the previous evening, and when Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) officials found out about it, they followed the train carrying the ‘apology gifts’ and caught up with it at Vadodara.

Lalit Sethi, a passenger on the train, said, “We were pleased to see such a reaction from IRCTC. We could not believe that it was happening in India!” [Mumbai Mirror]

Yes, it was happening in India and not without great effort from IRCTC employees. They had to really scramble after learning that a truck carrying the evening snacks had broken down and failed to reach the railway station on time. They had to get a store owner to open his store in the middle of the night, buy chocolates and other sweets, package them and rush them to Vadodara, where the train was due to stop at 4:20 a.m.

On reaching Vadodara at 3 am, they went inside an AC cabin and labelled each pack with a note saying “Sorry for the inconvenience caused to you”.

The staff put the boxes into 18 cartons, one for each compartment, and waited for the train to arrive. They finally boarded the train at Vadodara station at 4.20 am.

Parmar said, “The passengers were sleeping and we waited until they woke up. We then apologised for not serving them evening snacks and gave them the gifts. We had to stay awake the entire night and travel up to Mumbai. However, the entire task was worth it as the commuters appreciated our efforts.” [Mumbai Mirror]

Of course, they appreciated it, adults and kids alike. It's one of the first things you learn in business: Adults appreciate having good service and kids appreciate having sweets for breakfast.

Airlines cutting down on extra weight

Next time you fly, don't be surprised if the plastic fork and spoon you get with your airline meal are shorter than your little finger. Airlines are trying to reduce the weight of items on the plane, hoping to save on fuel costs.

In the United States, Northwest Airlines has excluded spoons from its cutlery pack if the in-flight meal does not require one.

It is not alone, according to Paul Steele, director of the environment at IATA.

Another carrier, JAL of Japan, took everything it loaded from a 747 and put it on the floor of a school gym to see what it really needed.

As a result it shaved a fraction of a centimetre off all its cutlery to cut weight.

"When you are talking about a jumbo jet with 400 people on board, being served two to three meals, this can save a few kilos," he said.

"You work out how much fuel that consumes over a year, and you can be talking about a considerable amount of money". [The Telegraph]

A few kilos can make a big difference, which makes me wonder why a passenger who isn't carrying any extra baggage still has to pay the same for a ticket as a sumo wrestler.

It would be discrimination, of course, to charge heavier passengers more, but shouldn't they be the ones to get the shorter spoons? They could also be asked to share the bag of peanuts, forgo the dessert, and visit the restroom before boarding.

Some other ways airlines can keep the weight down:

• Offer free haircuts in the departure lounge. Some folks carry 10 lbs in hair alone.
• Ban books such as "War and Peace" and "A Suitable Boy" that weigh more than the flight attendants.
• Avoid showing heavy movies such as "Schindler's List" and "Hotel Rwanda."
• Encourage passengers to donate their shoes to the needy and travel barefoot.
• Give free treats to parents who accidentally forget their children in the airport.

Photo by Straußer

Flying much safer than driving

Whenever there's a major plane crash, people get anxious about flying. They postpone their vacations  or try to drive to faraway destinations, overwhelming Yahoo and Google with search terms such as "driving distance from West Virginia to Hawaii."

But here's what everyone needs to know: aviation accidents are extremely rare, even if we include all those accidents we never hear about, such as when the drunk guy pulls a muscle getting off the sink in the washroom.

In fact, flying is MUCH safer than driving. In 2007, for example, air crashes in America killed only 44 people, while car accidents killed about 44,000. It should be obvious to you that if you are traveling by plane, you are one thousand times more likely to arrive at your destination, generally speaking, than your luggage is.

So why are we more likely to panic on a plane than in a car? Here are a few reasons:

1. Someone else is in control -- and we usually haven't met him or her. For all we know, Coco the Chimp might be sitting in the cockpit. Serves us right for flying Air Coco.

2. We're afraid of heights. It doesn't help that the pilot insists on telling us how high we are: "We are now cruising at an altitude of 35,000 feet. If you look down to the left, you will see the Rocky Mountains. And on the right, you will see Yao Ming."

3. We are always being reminded what to do in an emergency. "In case of a water landing, your seat cushion can be used as a floatation device, the plastic cups can be used as goggles and the in-flight magazine can be used to beat off sharks."

Imagine how my kids would feel if I made an announcement before every car trip: “Kids, in case I accidentally steer our car into a lake, please calmly remove your seat belts, move quickly to the front of the car and stop your mother from hitting me on the head.”

Let the women do the driving

My wife, Malathi, has a driver's license and thank goodness for that, because if she didn't have one, she wouldn't be able to buy any beer.

You have to be 18 to shop at the liquor store. Malathi is much older than that, but it's still conceivable that a sales clerk might ask her for ID, considering all the liquor fumes in the store. And when you're standing in line with a bunch of hip youngsters, who are listening to their iPods or texting their friends on their iPhones, the last thing you want to be doing is whipping out your passport.

Passports are the uncoolest form of ID. You might as well bring your mother to the store to say, "This is my daughter. She is older than 18. Would you like to see some of her baby pictures?"

Yes, the driver's license comes in handy, though, in Malathi's case, it ought to be called a drinker's license. Not that Malathi drinks a lot. She has a little wine or beer occasionally. A couple of times a month, which means that she does a lot more drinking than driving. Unless you count the type of driving that involves me and a wall.

When she goes to work, she takes the bus. It’s convenient, economical and less stressful. She gets to do some reading on the bus — and more than just all the tattoos.

When we go out as a family, guess who does the driving? Yes, Mr. Imbecile. That’s me. Malathi sits next to me and tells me what I did wrong: “Weren’t you supposed to turn left over there?” “Weren’t you supposed to slow down for the yellow light?” “Weren’t you supposed to stay out of the ditch?”

Air India has lots of competition

I blogged a few days ago about the many complaints from Air India's customers and I'd like to follow up with this observation: Air India is hardly outstanding, not even when it comes to poor service. The airline has plenty of competition, particularly in recent years, as Michelle Higgins of The New York Times writes.

OVER the past few years — and this will probably come as no surprise to anyone who has gotten on a plane over this Thanksgiving weekend — flying in coach has become an increasingly miserable experience. Legroom is practically nonexistent. Passengers are more tightly packed together. Hot meals have been eliminated. Ditto pillows and blankets. And the next time that guy in front of you leans his seat back directly into your face, few of your fellow passengers are likely to blame you if you feel a brief, murderous urge to strike back.

All this has created a generation of fliers who now view getting on a plane as roughly akin to entering the ninth circle of hell. [Link]

"Flying in coach" means "economy class," but as far as the airlines are concerned, it might as well be called "animal freight." Actually, some animals have it better. Pigs, for example, have more legroom and better tasting food.

Doug Fesler, an executive at a medical research group in Washington, wasn’t expecting much in the way of amenities on his American Airlines flight to Honolulu in September. In fact, knowing the airline no longer served free meals, he had packed his own lunch for the second leg of his flight from Dallas to Honolulu. But he said he was shocked at the lack of basic services and the overall condition of the cabin.

On that flight, the audio for the movie was broken. The light that indicated when the bathroom was occupied was squirrely, causing confusion and, in some cases, embarrassingly long waits for passengers in need of the lavatory. And though food was available for purchase, it ran out before the flight attendants could serve the entire cabin, leaving some fellow passengers looking longingly at the snack he had packed. [Link]

Passenger: "May I have a roast beef sandwich please?"

Flight attendant: "Sorry, sir, we've run out of food."

Passenger: "You've run out of food? What's wrong with you people?"

Flight attendant: "Please don't raise your voice, sir. It could have been worse. We could have run out of gas."

Want service? Don't fly Air India

London resident Vijay Rana has created Air India Story, a blog that records how Air India treats its passengers. Dozens of people have already posted their stories, mostly complaining about canceled flights, long delays, poor service and rudeness.

I once traveled by Air India (for the first and last time), from Singapore to Chennai. There was a Singaporean Indian beside me. ... He asked for a beer from the air-hostess. She took awfully long to arrive, but to my surprise she had two cans instead of one. The man asked why, to which she replied, "You will ask for another can anyways, so just have it." [Link]

After reading this story, thousands of men vowed not to fly any other airline. Two beers instead of one! That should be AI's slogan.

I have had varied experiences. On one occasion, I had a very efficient and courteous flight attendant. On another, I was cold and asked for a blanket. The attendant said they weren't given sufficient blankets (because it is a "temperature controlled flight"), but she tried to help me by "stealing" one from a passenger who was sleeping. He actually woke up and snatched it back from her -- good for him. I don't remember if I finally got one or not, but it sure was amusing. [Link]

Amusing for you, but probably not for the other guy. If you ever fly AI, make sure you take your own blanket and some sort of anti-theft device.

In 2000, a friend of mine traveled from the United States to India on an Air India flight whose final destination was Bangalore. ... This flight, which was through LHR, did not serve any meals at all in the economy class. They stated that the caterer failed to upload food. [Link]

No food on a flight from the U.S. to India? I'd be walking down the aisle asking passengers, "Did anyone bring a pot in their carry-on baggage? That flight attendant looks really delectable."

Three years back, my two kids and I boarded the Air India flight from Trivandrum to Dubai. You must understand the effort a father takes on a trip with small kids and the pain of feeding them food and water. When the male attendant started serving coffee/tea after lunch, I politely asked him not to give it to me then, and I would ask later, because I was feeding my younger one. The man replied: "If you want it, take it. I don’t have time to serve you later." [Link]

What he should have said was: "You'd better take your tea now, sir. We might run out of hot water."

Confiscate that toy sword! We can sell it on eBay

If you just had something valuable confiscated by airport security -- perhaps a Swiss Army knife that once belonged to your grandfather -- don't lose hope. You might be able to get it back.

Since 9/11, the Transportation Security Administration has collected tons of items at security checkpoints; in 2006 alone, screeners took in more than 13 million items. What happens to all that stuff? The TSA turns it over to state surplus property agencies, which tend to sell it online or at retail stores. (Sometimes the contraband is sold in bulk.)

The agencies say they'll reunite you with your prized pocketknife, if they can locate it. But they would much prefer that travelers figure out the rules and abide by them. "Our goal is for passengers not to bring this stuff on anymore, so we won't have to deal with it," says Steve Ekin, Georgia's surplus property division director. [Link]

You: "I'm trying to locate something that was confiscated from me at Philadelphia airport."

Surplus officer: "Can you describe it?"

You: "It's a Swiss Army knife."

Officer: "We have 575 of those."

You: "Well, it's got a red cover."

Officer: "That narrows it to 570."

You: "I'd really like it back. It was my grandfather's."

Officer: "Sorry, can't help you."

You: "What are you going to do with them?"

Officer: "Well, we'll try to sell them on eBay first. And if that doesn't work, we'll return them to the Swiss Army."