Fly International, But Pack Your Own Lunch

This was posted on the Budget Travel Newsletter that appeared in my mailbox today. Can it get any more ridiculous? Christopher Elliot, the travel ombudsman jokes that they will start charging for using the toilets, making them coin-operated. As Freud said "Many truths are said in jest." I hope the airlines do not read Christopher's blog. United will cut free meals on many overseas flights

Posted by: Sean O'Neill, Wednesday, Aug 20, 2008, 9:48 AM

Starting Oct. 1, United Airlines will stop serving free meals to coach-class passengers on transatlantic flights between Washington D.C. (Dulles airport) and destinations in Europe. It's the first U.S. Airline to stop distributing free meals on transatlantic flights. The airline will offer salads and sandwiches for $9, says The Washington Post.

Meals in first and business classes will remain free for transatlantic flights. But for most domestic flights, business class will no longer get free meals. And the price of meals for flights within the U.S. Will also rise. (See United's pricing chart for details.)

No word yet on whether flight attendants will be able to handle all the cash payments. The game of "does anyone have small bills?" will get very old on a long transatlantic flight. I hope they'll give hand-held, credit-card reading machines to them, like US Airways is giving some of its flight attendants on domestic flights. (Virgin Atlantic has credit-card swipe readers on each seatback.)

Pin It Now!

Travel Tip: It Is a Terrific Time to Teach Abroad

This article came through the online newsletter Edutopia supported by the George Lucas Foundation. I have added it here to the blog, because I get innumerable requests for information about teaching abroad. This is an excellent resource article and the newsletter, though free, is chock full of good articles. "Edutopia" Travel Tip: It Is a Terrific Time to Teach Abroad: July 11, 2008 This is a guest posting from my friend and colleague David Carpenter, who is working abroad as an instructional technologist in Asia. Read his other posts, 'An Instructional Technologist Muses on Lessons Learned: The Peaks and Pitfalls of Discovery Learning [1]' and 'Building Blocks for Technology Integration: A Strategy for Success [2].' Chris mentioned that it might be helpful to bring an international perspective to whatever I planned to write about for this post. I teach at Hsinchu International School [3], in Taiwan, so I thought that maybe I should write about what it means to be an international educator and then move on to a technology topic. Why does someone become an international educator? My wife Margaret and I are now in our sixth country. Our boys were born in Saudi Arabia and Panama, and they are growing up in international schools with children from all over the world. We love the learning that goes with living in different cultures. The travel opportunities we can organize for school holidays take us to dynamic cities and historical locations as well as very relaxing beaches. We cannot think of a better educational experience for our children, as they have fantastic, flexible, and dedicated teachers in small-class"

Pin It Now!