A few thoughts on the events that took place in Paris last week. As a lawyer whose favorite Constitutional law topic is the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, I take a very strong position in favor of freedom...
A Roadmap for 2015
Happy New Year from Live and Let’s Fly and I want to use this brief post to discuss my roadmap for this blog in 2015. As I discussed yesterday, 2014 was not exactly a year of progress for this...
Personal Thoughts on Travel and a New Era of US-Cuban Relations
It was seven years ago that President George W. Bush announced his Administration was doubling down on its bid to isolate the communist Cuban regime. More travel restrictions and more money restrictions, all with the end goal of bringing...
Moving to South Africa
…for the next month anyway. Perhaps longer. I’m already here, actually. You can blame my wife. Or the American government. Or striking South African postal workers. You see, not that our U.S. government wins any blue ribbons for its efficiency,...
Scam Artists Claim I am in a German Prison to Extort My Grandma
Imagine you are 88 years old and your grandson and his new wife live in Germany. You have not seen him in a couple months and know that he is a good boy, but his idea of fun is...
Reflections on World War and Crashed Airliners
100 years ago, Serbian rebels dreaming of changed political boundaries assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, in Sarajevo. The initial response was muted, but three weeks later, Austria-Hungary responded forcefully by issuing an ultimatum to Serbia...
In My Absence…
Some of you may have noticed that things have been quiet lately…in the four years that I have written Live and Let’s Fly, there has never been a month with as few posts as the last one. Thankfully, my...
To Selfie or Not To Selfie?
An aborted takeoff at Philadelphia International Airport tonight led to an evacuation of 149 passengers and five crew members. One passengers elected to post a selfie on Twitter just moments after evacuating the US Airways A320 aircraft with a...
On Malaysia Airlines and the Fragility of Life
I am working on a trip report that will include the scariest flight of my life, a Malaysia Airlines flight from Kuala Lumpur to Phnom Penh, Cambodia. An odd coincidence that it was on Malaysia Airlines but a sobering...
Why I Went to Afghanistan When I Did
Things in Afghanistan are going downhill…to put it lightly. The latest headline is Taliban Attack on Kabul Restaurant Rattles Close-Knit Expat Community in which we learn: KABUL—Shock spread through Kabul’s close-knit expatriate community after the Taliban killed 21 people, including...
Why I’m Not So Optimistic About Jeff Smisek Anymore
On October 12, 2010 I wrote a post entitled, “Why I’m Optimistic about Jeff Smisek Leading United Airlines.” Based upon an inflight anecdote in which Smisek engaged both crew and customers, I posited that “he appears to be laying...
My Thanksgiving Hypocrisy
I try to avoid political controversy here, but for my annual Thanksgiving post I had planned to write a piece stating that I would not be shopping today or tomorrow and encouraging you to also spend the time with...
Pack a Sack as United Sacks Packs of Snacks in Back to Stay in Black
United Airlines CEO Jeff Smisek promised USD$2 Billion in cuts at the last shareholders’ meeting and the process has already begun. First, route cuts. Next, a threatened furlough of legacy United flight attendants (more on that in a future...
Are Airline Safety Videos Worth Playing?
For years we have been told to set aside our reading materials while an airline safety video is played prior to takeoff, but few people comply with that request. In fact, most openly ignore it–continuing conversations, remaining focused on reading...
An Armed TSA is a Threat to All
In the wake of a lone wolf gunman storming a Terminal 3 security checkpoint at LAX last Friday and murdering a TSA screener, some are now calling for a cadre of TSA screeners to be armed at every airport....
Flying on 9/11, 12 Years Later
It has been three months since I have flown on United Airlines—it seems like yesterday that I was running for my connection in SFO—but today I took to the air again, flying from Los Angeles to Newark. In the...
An Important Decision Resolved
Let me give you a bit of advice that probably goes without saying—if you wish to do well on something, you have to put in the effort…unless you happen to be naturally brilliant of course, which few of us...
Singapore, My 100th Country
I never got around to posting that I recently surpassed the 100-country threshold in my quest to explore as much of this world as humanly possible. Last month Singapore became my 100th country visited, as I spent about 28...
The United Merger: One Year Later
One year has passed since the day United and Continental officially tied the knot and what a year it has been. I predicted in a blog post late on March 2, 2012 that the transition would be bumpy and...
Seven Words You Can Never Say on an Airplane?
George Carlin famously claimed there were “seven words you can never say on television.” In light of the controversy over my recent ejection from a United Airlines flight, I want to pose the following question today— Are there certain...
