Now of course the cabin crew are striking which is annoying for two reasons:

• It is disruptive – we rely on BA to be able to do our business!
• I worry about the future of the only reasonable airline and who I’d fly if they turned into a surly US-style carrier (the merger with AA isn’t good news from that perspective). All the reasonable alternatives like SilverJet have gone.
• I’ve got a huge number of BA Miles oustanding.

But the real reason I fly BA is because it makes me feel good. I saw this in a Sunday Times piece by Jeremy Clarkson today

I like Virgin. And I flew Singapore Airlines recently, which was out of this world. But there is nothing quite so joyous as leaving the hustle and bustle of a superheated Third World hellhole and being greeted on the big BA jumbo by a homosexual with a cold flannel and a refreshing glass of champagne. Take that away from us and we may as well all be Belgian.

When you fly BA you feel like you are home the moment you step into the BA Lounge. There’s nothing better when you’ve spent a week running around some strange country doing 4 meetings a day, a different city each day. I can plonk my sleep-deprived, travel-ravaged carcass into a chair, sip a glass of red wine, and read that day’s UK paper.

Please BA, sort yourselves out.

Therefore, the odds of being on given departure which is the subject of a terrorist incident have been 1 in 10,408,947 over the past decade. By contrast, the odds of being struck by lightning in a given year are about 1 in 500,000. This means that you could board 20 flights per year and still be less likely to be the subject of an attempted terrorist attack than to be struck by lightning.

Think about the people you see on airplanes.  Then imagine what they would look like naked.  Eeeew. That’s right, fat, old, wrinkled, smelly bodies surrounding you.  Not a muscle would flex on board, fearing that they might touch someone’s sagging fleshiness.  Every muscle would go limp.  Minds would shut down.  Aside from the occasional retching, there would be utter silence as people froze in place to avoid any possibility of human contact.  You can’t bring down an airplane with your eyes tightly shut.

Very insightful!

Apparently it’s now doing to be down to each pilot (I assume the Captain) to decide the security restrictions in flight:

The TSA confirmed Monday that pilots can now decide whether to allow passengers to keep items in their laps or require them to be seated during portions of the flight.

The agency also will let pilots and airlines determine whether in-flight entertainment systems that show a plane’s location should be turned off to avoid a security risk, an agency spokeswoman said.

How’s this going to work out? Whenever there have been restrictions placed on passengers it has always been presented as “The authorities require us to xxx” which means there’s a higher authority involved, and the people in front of you enforcing the rules can’t be blamed, or argued with.

Now we will all know it was the guy at the front of the plane that made us all sit like naughty school children – or not, as the case maybe. All sorts of considerations are going to come into play aside from security, and every single thoughtful passenger is going to be second-guessing the decision of the pilots.

Of course, not only will there be an emotional reaction for each individual flight, but people who travel a lot are quickly going to start to inform their travel choices based on what’s likely to happen between different airlines. If one airline routinely inconveniences you in the name of security and another is more pragmatic, which one is a business traveller likely to choose?

Seems to me that the security breach was way before anyone got on the plane, the restrictions imposed over the past week are of little use but meant the authorities are seen to “be doing something”. And now they’re going to take the whole hot potato and throw it at the flight crew, who will take all the blame either way.

Deeply unimpressive. Perhaps it is time to Fire the TSA.

This article on The Economist’s Gulliver blog is the best I’ve seen so far – good summary of what’s happening with some decent analysis.

Just found via Twitter  - here’s the TSA regulation with some commentary.

This is completely nuts – I am struck by the difference between the UK and the US in response to Terrorism. I recall when the IRA bombed the London commuter rail network, we all went in as normal the next day because to do otherwise would have meant the Terrorists would win.

In contrast, the US Authorities seem intent on “being seen to do something” and if that means something massively disruptive but totally ineffective (“Security Theatre“) well so be it.

Come on guys, get a grip. The latest incident was a failure of your existing processes. Fix that, don’t shove more inconvenience in the way of the public – otherwise we’ll turn into a Police State and then the Terrorists will have won.

There’s risk in every day life, let’s keep things in perspective – otherwise the baddies will get exactly what they want.

In last week’s Economist Magazine they had an article on how inheritance laws differ across the EU.

In 26 out of 27 European Union countries, Mr Buffett’s plans would not just be shocking, but illegal. The exception is Britain, or rather England and Wales (Scotland has its own, centuries-old legal system, with a strong continental flavour). In continental Europe a big part of an estate (often around half) is reserved for the surviving children of the deceased and must be equally divided between them. This “forced heirship” makes it impossible to disinherit feckless children (though several countries exclude bequests to “unworthy” children, who have for example murdered a parent or two). Such rules also make it hard to reward the deserving by, say, leaving more to a daughter who gave up a career to care for her ailing parents. Finally, “clawback” laws in many countries stop parents from dodging forced heirship by giving assets away while they are still alive. This applies to gifts made in the last years of life (two years in Austria, ten in Germany), or much longer: in some countries, no time limit applies.

Wow – I had always taken it for granted that you could leave your assets to whomever you pleased. But apparently not… and I’m not sure that’s a good thing. Read the article for all the details, but I can see it would cause us real problems.

It is quite a shock how something Id’ viewed as almost a human right turns out to be viewed with abhorrence in a next door country which I had viewed as being broadly similar to the UK. It’s a reminder that some things are very cultural dependant and you can’t make assumptions… especially about things you assume are common!

I’ve put a couple of Widgets on this site – Lifestream combines my Twitter and BrightKite streams (nifty plugin!) and another shows a map of where I am.

I am continuously impressed by WordPress and the WordPress ecosystem – this was the work of minutes.

I fly a lot and find this kind of stuff very interesting; if you are a nervous flying this is probably TMI…

• First post on how planes stay up in the air, the narrow window for air speed, and the problems of weather.
• Second post on how the Airbus A330 automated systems help/hinder the pilot.