World Traveler

That’s right, tarmac stranding.

The result of a failure in the communication system of CINDACTA I caused serious delays in Brasília for all flights in March 2007. Worse than airport delays, however, are "tarmac strandings," and the U.S. has recently pushed hard to punish offending airlines. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Agencia Brasil.

For those unfamiliar with the phrase, you are both forgiven—and if a frequent flyer—quite lucky in your ignorance. True, the term sounds a bit like whale beaching, and perhaps when viewed from a distance it appears much the same. Imagine a jumbo jet airliner, full of passengers stuck on the tarmac either waiting to take off or unable to connect to the terminal so travelers can disembark. Now imagine these numerous, beleaguered Jonahs (which happened to include women, children and the elderly) stuck overnight inside this beached whale of a plane only fifty yards from a terminal.

Imagine the smelly toilets, the horribly stale air, the screaming babies and the rather limited airline food. Imagine the captain begging for a competitor to open the airline terminal to no avail.

Imagine that such events, taken from the rather macabre stranding of Continental Express Flight 2816 at Rochester Airport in Minnesota, happen more often than you might think.

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Although the Swine Flu has not proven as dangerous as the Spanish Flu of the early 1900s, it still pays to take precaustions.

As most travelers would guess, a long-haul flight is in fact no less than the perfect incubator. Pack a wide variety of humans from various nationalities into an enclosed space for eight to nine hours, circulate the air as effectively as possible and add in the factor that many will be fatigued or even stressed by their travel plans and yes, some people will get sick.

So what do to? Stay home? Abandon that long-planned trip to Hawaii? Skip that critical business meeting?

Surely, you’re joking. Especially as a few, easy-to-implement strategies (not including vaccination) can drastically reduce your chances of getting sick.

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Obviously, the “fall of the Wall” means so much more than that, or perhaps the word “freedom” is more general, optimistic and overly simplistic than we might think. For what digs deeper into the meaning of the word than the right to go where you please, when you please and, to an extent, how you please. And now, 20 years later, what is the typical response you receive from a Pole or Russian or East German when you ask about the years of Communism?

“We couldn’t go anywhere.”

With the fall of the Berlin Wall, new destinations opened up to millions of world travelers. Photo courtesty of Wikipedia Commons/Estec Company, Ltd., Incoming Tour Operator, the Czech Republic.

Which brings me to a rather bizarre comment made to me by an associate, recently.

“You know,” he began, admittedly mumbling a bit over this third pint of beer. “Travel does so much good it should be mandatory.” (more…)

Preston Smith Travel Editor Psiloc

So you want to sell? Then get on a plane and go sell.

That’s right, buy that plane ticket. Book that hotel. Spend money to make money.

Sounds revolutionary? Hardly.  Or at least not for those who have any serious experience in international business.  Yet there is little doubt that, thanks to the economic downturn, business travel has somehow been miscast as a “sin of the times.” In fact, according to the legend, company heads do nothing but waste money on business trips. They travel and party to exotic destinations on the back of the good, hard-working middle class.

Now I’m not saying this never happens. In fact, as a frequent business traveler, I can say that yes, I have definitely seen it happen—especially during “business conference festivities” where not every company representative has his mind on business. But according to research published by Oxford Economics, a consulting firm linked to Oxford University, when it comes to sensible business trips the numbers do add up.

Simply put, for every dollar spent on business travel, companies bring in an average of USD 3.80 in profit, according to Oxford Economics, as cited by The Associated Press. And this is coming on the back of an estimated USD 12.80 in revenue for every dollar spent.

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