The Morning Dispatch: Flight Risks

Pandemic aftereffects and pilot shortages are grounding record numbers of planes as the summer travel rush heats up.

By and
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Happy Tuesday! Congratulations to the Cambodian fisherman who caught what is believed to be the world’s largest recorded freshwater fish: A 660-pound, 13-foot-long stingray.

Just think, that could theoretically be floating beneath you in the lake this summer!

Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories

  • The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission reported Monday that at least 200 civilians in the country’s Oromia region were killed over the weekend in an attack allegedly perpetrated by the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA). The massacre—which primarily targeted the Amhara ethnic group—is believed to be related to fighting between the Ethiopian government and the OLA, which has aligned itself with Tigrayan rebels in the country’s ongoing civil war. An OLA spokesman denied the allegations, claiming Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is “again blaming the OLA for atrocities committed by its own retreating fighters.”

  • Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett announced Monday the country’s governing coalition will dissolve Parliament in the coming days, teeing up another round of elections later this fall—Israel’s fifth in the last three years. Cobbled together last year with support from eight different political parties from the right, left, and center, the coalition had been on shaky ground in recent months after a handful of defections eliminated its parliamentary majority.

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  1. Avatar photo
    Paul Hoover

    You wrote “…staunched some of the bleeding…” but I think you should have used “stanched” instead.

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  2. Avatar photo
    BikerChick

    This is making the rounds on Facebook authored by a flight attendant: Flying this summer is ROUGH!!! I feel like as a Flight Attendant I should attempt to share some tips to get you through airline travel for the foreseeable future. ✈️✈️
    1. Things are not good..... if its less than 7 hours - DRIVE! I'm not kidding. There is nothing enjoyable about flying right now. On any airline. If you must fly, keep reading. 🚗
    2. Download and use the app of the airline you are flying. You can do everything on it - get your boarding pass, track your bags, see your incoming plane, and change a flight. It sure beats waiting in the long line to talk to an agent! Trust me - Usually these apps will tell you a flight is cancelled before the crew even knows! 📲
    3. Fly MUCH earlier than you need to - a whole day early if its important!! This week I saw many people miss important things like weddings, funerals, cruises, international connections, and graduations. The tears were very real, for very real reasons, and there was nothing I could do! If you have to be somewhere, spend the extra money, go a day early. Have a glass of wine and stay in a hotel, enjoy your night not being stressed while everyone else misses their events. 🍷
    4. ALWAYS fly the first flight in the morning so you have all day to be rebooked if the shit hits the fan. Yes, that means it might be a 3:00 alarm, but morning flights don't cancel nearly as often.⏰
    5. This is not unique to this year, but keep in mind summer is thunderstorm season. A single storm can shut down a whole airport. We can't fly through them. Storms usually build as the day gets later. Book early flights! ⛈
    6. Schedule long layovers - Your 1 hour layover is NOT enough anymore. 30 minutes, not a chance. 3 hours minimum. 🏃‍♀️🏃🏃‍♂️
    7. What you see on the news is an understatement. We are short staffed and overworked. Not just pilots and flight attendants, but also ground crews. Without ground crews there is no one to park the planes, drive jetways, get your bags on/off planes, or scan boarding passes. This causes many delays that snowball throughout the day. Sometimes HOURS.(Another reason morning flights are best!) 👀
    8. When flight crews get delayed we time out. We can NOT fly longer than 16 hours. Its illegal. So it doesn't matter if you have a wedding to get to, when we are done we are done. The way things are now, there are no back up crews, so when this happens your flight cancels. (Now you are starting to see why those morning flights are best!) 😴
    9. Avoid connecting in Newark (Or any New York airport for that matter). It is literal hell. You have a 50/50 chance your flight will cancel or missing your connection. They have been cancelling flights at their starting points just to keep the planes out, because there just aren't enough people to manage the planes, so the gates stay full. Also the restaurants are expensive, it is not a great place to be stuck. 💩
    10. Be nice. As stated above, we are overworked and tired. We will not help you if you are mean. No one cares that you are going to miss your cruise if you are an asshole. So even if we can help, we will save our help for someone nice. Tensions are high. Our patience is gone. If you make us mad - you will not be flying on our planes. We will leave you behind without a second thought, and laugh about you later. 🥰
    11. Being drunk on an airplane is a federal offense, so don't overdo it. If you drink too much at the bar waiting for your delayed flight you risk not being allowed to fly at all. We are too tired to deal with your drunk ass when we have legitimate issues to deal with. 🍻
    12. Get trip insurance if you have a lot of money invested. I hate the whole idea of this, but I also hate the idea of losing money. Example: I was working a flight yesterday that waited over an hour for a gate. A family of 8 missed their flight to Rome. The only flight of the day. They were going to a cruise which they would now miss. They were all crying, there was nothing I could do. (Also a reason to fly a day early!) 🛳
    13. Flights are FULL. If you buy the cheap seats you will not be able to sit with your family. It says so when you purchase your ticket!! Flight Attendants aren't there to rearrange the whole plane just so you can sit with your family because you tried to save $100 on a third party website. 💸
    14. Speaking of third party websites and saving money..... Like I said flights are FULL. If a flight is oversold, and no one volunteers to give up their seats, who do you think is the first to be bumped? You guessed it, the family that saved a few $$ by using sites like Expedia, Kayak, Hotwire etc. 🤷‍♀️
    15. Pack smart. Don't be "That guy" Don't hold up boarding because you have your extenders open till they are busting and you can't figure out how to make it fit in the overhead. (Passengers are stressed too, they can be aggressive when boarding a delayed flight) 🛍
    16. Take showers, brush your teeth, leave the perfume off, don't eat stinky food (caesar salad and tuna fish I'm talking to you!), and bring headphones. Trust me. These things sound basic, but add to stress on crowded planes. If you are stuck on the tarmac for 3 hours after a 4 hour flight, you will thank me for this. 💜
    17. Bring a sweater if you tend to be cold. So tired of half naked girls asking me to turn the heat up. NO. Wear clothes!! Side note: If you dress like this and ask for heat, there's a chance I will turn the AC up. 🥶
    18. Thats not water on the bathroom floor. For the love of God wear shoes to the bathroom!!! 🤮
    19. Don't tell a Flight Attendant they look tired. We are and we know. You may cause us to ugly cry right there in galley. 😭
    20. Happy Travels!

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  3. GusABQ

    I don't know if it's the worst, but it's certainly close. I aborted a trip to Vienna I was supposed to take this week because, while I succesfully made it to Heathrow, I missed my connection to Vienna and couldn't get one for at least two days. I gave up and came home.

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  4. Avatar photo
    Richard.O.Sienkewicz

    Hmmmm. So many horrible airline (and other) travel experiences to choose from. I suppose, the worst was getting stranded in Shanghai because the travel agent who booked my flight back to the States didn’t account for the fact that I’d have to go through Chinese customs coming in from Japan, and so I had an impossibly short layover.

    A close second is Amtrak getting me to my destination something like 18 hours late after they pretty much immediately started missing their track priority window.

    Having to get a one-way rental to drive 6 hours after dealing with delays all day because ORD’s terminal was flooding and my connecting flight was cancelled wasn’t terribly fun, either.

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  5. Tinacrevello1

    Yes, we bought a motorhome.!

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  6. Avatar photo
    Richard Maxton

    Airlines have 2 weeks to get their acts together before my trip to Las Vegas.

    If I'm late to the WSOP Main Event, there will be a veritable barrage of bad words.

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  7. Avatar photo
    BrettH

    I take my vacations in the Spring and Fall while the nation's kids are in school and most people are at work. I put my head down and grind out the summers. I experience no joy or relaxation dealing with crowded popular vacation destinations like Yosemite.

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    Everett Zabriskie

    Worst airline experience. British Airways JFK to Copenhagen. I arrived Heathrow at 6am on a Monday in the midst of a snowfall that ended at 10am with an accumulation of five inches. The UK does not deal well with snow. No more fell that week. Still, it was Wednesday at 4pm that I was finally on a flight from Heathrow to Copenhagen. To BA’s credit, though it took six months, they did finally cover 2/3 of the hotel and meal costs for the layover.

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    BikerChick

    The article doesn't really explain the cause of cancellations. Is it that flights are scheduled so far in advance that the airlines don't really know until the DAY OF that a flight will be cancelled? It's maddening, I tell you. I understand weather delays and their cascading effects but that's not what's happening much of the time these days. I have zero desire the fly anytime soon. I refuse to book anything but a direct flight which usually results in driving two hours to ORD. We drove 12 hours to South Dakota for our vacation last week and I'll take all those hours in the car over worrying about whether or not I'm going to make it to my destination on time.

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  10. Avatar photo
    Madeleine

    My worst travel experience was our summer vacation in 1976. My mom loved epic driving trips and each summer we would drive from Chicago to Montana where we eventually moved. My dad hated epic driving trips which is why he would typically fly out and meet us somewhere along the way. I can see his point..a station wagon with six kids and luggage did not scream "SERENITY NOW". Anyway, in 1976 we were on our way back to IL and stopped at Mt. Rushmore. After the stop, we had car problems and ended up staying the night in Kadoka, SD. We stayed at the Best Western while the car was getting fixed. We ate at the hotel restaurant and at sometime in the wee hours of the morning all six kids were completely hammered with a very, very bad case of food poisoning. My parents were spared (lucky them I guess) but that day's 531 mile drive to Des Moines, IA is memorable only because of the sheer misery of it. I still remember the stops we made along the way so my mother could empty the baggies of barfed up Pepto Bismal at rest areas garbage cans.

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